Chinese Lantern
by Dakki
Summary: We all know time-travel is impossible. But what if there was a chink in the wall where two worlds converged? When two people stumble upon this place, their separate worlds get dragged in as well, and no reality is left unchanged.
1. Riding the Dragon

A/N: Okay, I'll admit it—I got a little bored.  And when Dakki gets bored, you'd better watch out, because that can only mean one thing—another fic in the works.  (Yes, I know.  _Another _one.)  But this one's gonna be _really _nifty—I promise!  And if I can draw inspiration from a computer game, what do you think I can do with childhood nostalgia for "The Neverending Story" and assorted Norwegian pop songs?

DALTON [the annoying yet semi-cute preppie-muse]: Actually, you probably don't want to think about that one...

Shut up and work on your coloring books.

DALTON: YAY!  Coloring! *scurries off*

*grins* Anyway... *loses her train of thought*

DALTON: *yells from the other room* EXPLANATION OF PREMISE, DAK?

Ah, yes.  Right-o.  So basically, the fic chronicles an alternate dimension country called Möbia, a fairy-tale land full of pirates, gypsies, thieves, and dragons named fluffy.  It proves to be the chink in the wall through which our world and that of the newsies' time can connect...and from there on, the plot thickens.  As thick as a very thick pudding, maybe.  Like tapioca.  

Mmm...tapioca...

DALTON: *slaps her upside the head* 

And now, on to the fic!

*~*~*

_Chinese Lantern_

*~*~*

_Chapter One—_

_Riding the Dragon_

_*~*~*_

It was the opium that did it.

Spot only decided this later—once there was no turning back, and certainly no chance for either blame or regret.  He knew it was the truth, though, and he never once doubted it.  Spot never doubted anything.

If you're feeding an addiction for so long, then things have to come to a head sometime.  At first he was only going up to Chinatown once every Tuesday; soon it was twice a week, then every other day.  When he had it in his lungs and it slowed the beat of his heart everything was softer; he would lie down on the floor among the threadbare cushions and rugs, watching the rain against the window for hours, not trusting himself to look at anything else.  Every movement blurred and feathered; images bled into the cool night air until nothing was distinct anymore.  And after that, there was always a moment—a single moment when something changed, a door in his mind closed and let him loose of his worries for the rest of the night.  

In the morning when he woke up, back in Brooklyn, in the bunkroom or some grimy flophouse, or sometimes still back in the opium den, he could feel it in him—he was hollow-eyed, hollow-bodied; the peacefulness had left him and whatever it was that had brought it to him was nothing more than an ache in the marrow of his bones.  But it never hit him harder than the morning when he woke up early in summer, the sun barely risen the sky—the morning when he finally paid the price.

He had never left Chinatown the night before.  That much was clear the moment he opened his eyes.  He was in the room they always brought him to, the one that was never light, even at midday.  The window that looked out onto the alleyway below had its shutters closed with only a few filaments of sunlight slipping in; just enough to see by.  The girl who always lit his pipe was kneeling on the floor, her back to him as she stared towards the window, or something else before her that Spot simply couldn't see.  

            His whole body aching, he rose and began to walk slowly toward her.  Sensing his presence, she turned to face him; the dark silk of her kimono slipped from her pale shoulder, but all she did was beckon for him to come closer.  A shaft of sunlight was suspended between them, almost opaque in the darkness of the room.

It was only when she reached for his hand and grabbed hold of his wrist that he noticed she was holding a knife.

            He barely felt it as she touched the point of the curved dagger gently to his skin.  It was as if he was watching from a distance.  And then, with lightning quickness: a flash of steel, and a crescent-shaped wound had appeared on his palm.  A tiny thing.  The tip of the knife barely darkened by his blood.

            The girl brought the knife parallel to the thread of sunlight that had escaped through the closed window, and gold turned to copper.  The brightness was stained by his blood, almost as if it had hardened, become a concrete thing, and willing to believe anything, Spot reached out to touch it.  With the tip of his finger, he felt the solid presence of warmth, and it was only when the feeling of living fire had spread to his palm, his wrist, his forearm that he realized that part of him had disappeared, turned to light, to air, to dust, and it was spreading faster and farther by the second.

            He turned to the girl to shout, ask for help, anything, but she was looking away, an expression of rapture on her face, and the words never got past his lips.

            "The time has come," she said.

            By then, he was finished.  Filaments of fiery sunlight shot up through the cartography of his veins, the map of his pale skin; too cold to be hot and too hot to be cold, and he didn't know what was happening or where he was going...

            Only that he was going somewhere he had never been before, and somewhere he might never leave.

            As it came closer and closer he didn't close his eyes.  He didn't close his eyes as he felt his whole self plunged into whatever it was, this nothing, and up and down his spine, in his hands and his eyes, and his soul; for fire leaves nothing untouched...

            _The time has come._

*~*~*

TBC...


	2. Don't You Forget About Me

**Author's Note: **A short one this time—just to tell you that you guys rock my polka-dotted socks, and I'd like to thank you yet again for leaving all your lovely reviews, giving me more ideas then I know what to do with, and also unwittingly providing the data for my upcoming science project for answering the peanut butter survey...in short, I love you all. I was gonna give you some of Dalton's crayons, but he was still being really possessive—

DALTON: (sticks out his tongue)

...So I stole some of them while he was sleeping...

DALTON: WHAT?

(innocently) Cerulean, anyone?

* * *

Chinese Lantern 

Chapter Two—

"Don't You Forget About Me"

* * *

The first day of summer vacation dawned bright and sunny and without a single cloud, the air cool and breezy, the sky as pure and crystalline as icing-sugar. It was the day of departure for the annual end-of-the-year sophomore field trip, and it was the kind of day that made forty six-year-olds act sixteen, and sixteen-year-olds act six. Although, truth be told, field trips almost always seem to have that effect on people, no matter what the weather is like.

Maybe it was Ram who explained it best, when he was sitting in the back of the bus along with Maddox, Ginnie, and Max—all best friends since grade school—barely five minutes out of Boston and already systematically shredding his Spanish III book and tossing the ripped pages out the window and into the paths of unsuspecting motorists.

"It's the first day of summer vacation," he rhapsodized. "We're free for three months—we can kiss our sophomore year goodbye. School's out. We survived finals. Now we're headed to New York City for a week, practically unsupervised if we play it right--We should all celebrate."

"Right, Ram, I understand all that," Max allowed. "But, um...what does that have to do with the _Grease_ soundtrack, exactly?"

But of course, Ram couldn't hear him by then, as he had already put on his headphones, the volume cranked all the way up, singing along at the top of his lungs.

"Why, this car is automatic—"

(A slap on Max's head in time with the music.)

"It's _systematic_—"

(Slap.)

"It's _hyyyyyyyyyyydromatic—_"

(Slap.)

_"WHY IT'S GREASED LIGHTNIN'!"___

(Slap-slap-slap-slap-slap!)

Max buried his face in his hands. "What did I _ever_ do to deserve this?"

"Maybe you killed a Bollywood star in a past life?" Maddox suggested from the seat behind him.

"But I thought Bollywood stars had the universal significance of gnats."

"Try telling that to our Ramchandra's mother," Maddox said, barely managing to hold back a laugh, if only for Max's sake.

"_With a four-speed on the floor, they'll be waitin' at the door—you know that it was shit, we'll be gettin' lots of tit, with Greased Lightnin'_!"

As Max sighed, looking close to tears, Ginnie, occupying the seat next to him, seized the opportunity at hand.

"Maxie?" she asked tentatively. "Anything I can do?"

"Can you go back in time to 1978 and make sure the production of _Grease _is stopped?"

"Um."

"Then no, Ginnie. I really don't think there is."

Ginnie colored prettily, as she always did when he called her by name, and rested her head gently on his shoulder. "I brought your lexicon for you," she said quietly. "It's in my backpack. And your Hesperides...your _Historie of the Spartan Wars_...so you can work on the bus if you like...and those juice boxes you like?" she continued, as Ram launched into a full-scale rendition of "You're The One That I Want" on Max's head. "The Cran-Grape? I brought some of those too..."

"Look, Ginnie, unless you can get him to stop using me as a human drum...there really isn't much—"

"I'll work on it," Ginnie said resolutely, and began in earnest to convince Ram that she had a more resonant head.

Ginnie Skarbonkiewicz had hair the color of milk and clover honey and the fragrant crushed petals of a sweet briar rose; the gods of youth and graceless beauty had given her bee-stung lips, coltish legs, and absolutely no common sense whatsoever--she was, as Ram was given to saying, not the sharpest crayon in the Crayola box of life. She was also an absolute hopeless romantic, and had, at this point, two great loves in her life: Judd Nelson from _The Breakfast Club_, and Max Backderf, whom she had been following around relentlessly since the fourth grade.

She loved them both equally but as Bender was fictional and Max a living, breathing prodigy, he always seemed to win out in the end, although he never seemed to be particularly happy about it. Of course, Max also had the added bonus of being a valid genius—and while Ginnie would always attest for Bender's skills as a philosopher ("screws just fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place," et cetera), he would never be able to beat Max in a fair game. Because Max had been reading English at two years of age, French when he was four and Latin, Arabic, and Greek by the time he started the first grade. He was a boy wonder, a child who exuded brilliance like a hundred-watt bulb—"my own little Doogie Howser," his mother was given to coo, at which point he usually attempted suicide by jumping out the first-floor window. He had started at Helen Keller School of Arts and Sciences when he was nine, and Ram, Ginnie, and Maddox, knowing nothing about the primary works of Hesiod or the fall of the Roman empire, befriended him immediately because of his preternatural kickball skills, and the fact that his full name was "Maximum Volume Backderf"—which cemented once and for all the fact that Ginnie couldn't have done much better chasing after Judd Nelson, although a fictional character might have paid her more attention in the long run.

By the time the teachers got around to taking roll, they were almost out of Massachusetts and anyone left behind would probably be in pretty bad shape. They also had to work around the fact that every single person on the bus had their headphones on, and so much noise was being made that even Ram had almost been drowned out. By the time roll had been taken, it was impossible to hear a word that anyone was saying, and the trip leaders had wisely decided to occupy the students with a written assignment—Goals For The Field Trip.

"I didn't know we were supposed to _have _goals for a field trip," Max muttered, but was of course completely drowned out.

Ram and Ginnie occupied themselves bowling tangerines down the center aisle of the bus ("who's it going to hurt? The _orange_?" Ram asked incredulously when one of the younger teachers suggested mildly that he stop, and the teacher, a little bit in love with Ram—because he really _did_ look like some Bollywood Hindu god, with his blue-black hair and dark eyes and skin like milk chocolate, so that you couldn't help being a little bit in love with him, even if you happened to hate him—just yelped something about trying not to hit anyone and scurried back to the front). Orange bowling seemed to take a remarkable amount of time, involving complex scoring procedures and the like, and by the time they were both happily singing along with their CD players—the _RENT _soundtrack for Ram, and "Ginnie's Eighties Mix VIII" for Ginnie—Max and Maddox were already working on their written goals, but mostly passing notes to each other across the seat-back.

"What's the time? Well, it's gotta be close to midni-i-ight...my body's talkin' to me—it says, time for dange-e-er!..."

_ WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS, MISS MADDOX BROWN? _Max scrawled in his impenetrable shorthand.

"WO-ON'T YOU, come see about me...I'll be alone, dancin', you know it baby..."

_ i'd__ like to buy the world a coke, _Maddox wrote back.

_ NO, SERIOUSLY—WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO PUT?_

"It says I wanna commit a crime! Wanna be! the! cause! of a fight! Wanna put on a tight skirt...and _flirt_...with a strange-e-er..."

_ you__ mean, what are you going to put?_

_ EXACTLY.___

"Love's strange—so real in the dark...think of the tender things...that we were working on..."

_ well, if i were you, i'd say: i'm going to once again infuriate every adult in my social stratosphere (which is all adults) by acting bizarre and trivial and once more stifling the work of genius that everyone is sure is inside me somewhere._

"We don't need any moooo-oneeeyyy...I always get in for free! You-can-get-in-too...if you get in with meee-a-heee...LET'S GO! O-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, tonight! I have to go! A-na-na-na-hoooo, tonight!..."

"DON'T! YOU! Forget about me! Don't, don't, don't, don't..."

_ WHAT DO YOU MEAN, A WORK OF GENIUS INSIDE OF ME? _Max wrote. _LIKE A TAPEWORM, OR SOMETHING?_

_ yes__, max. exactly like a tapeworm._

_ HOW DO YOU GET A TAPEWORM OUT?_

_ i__ think you're supposed to not eat anything for a while, and then hold a dish of warm milk in front of you...and lure it out...somehow..._

_ AND THEN I JUST GRAB IT BY THE NECK AND GO, 'HELLO, INSPIRATION'? MY GOD, MADDIE, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE?_

At risk of becoming yet another Backderf-groupie, Maddox stifled a laugh and reluctantly went back to working on her assignment. She wrote her on-paper name, Caroline Maddox Brown, on the slip they had given her, and before she could let herself compose anything that might have been expected—I want to go to the Metropolitan Museum; I want to see a Broadway show—she began to write down the only thing that she could ever think of, beginning with that much-bitten line:  
  
_ I want to have an adventure.  
I want to do something never done before—to raise anchor on a pirate ship of cutthroat marauders who write poetry with steel; to shoot with the perfect arc of a bow, and let fly poison-tipped arrows. I want to shout from every hilltop, to go into battle, to sing my heart and soul and lungs out across the trampled-bracken undersnow fields and barren mountains of a strange new land. I want to save a life. I want to be something. I want to change something. And most of all: to do something that no one could ever have imagined._  
  
She surveyed her paper with furrowed brow, and, at the very bottom, penciled in one last PS—  
  
_ and failing that, I wouldn't mind going to see _Wicked_ on Broadway._  
  
From the seat next to her, as if on cue, Ram began to sing at the top of his lungs:  
  
"SO! If you care to fiiiiind me, look to the western sky—as someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to flyyyy! And if I'm flying solo! At least I'm flying freeEEeeEeee..."

* * *

At lunchtime, they stopped at a deli somewhere in the outskirts of Brooklyn, the last stop before they reached their final destination. While Ginnie, Max and Ram sat outside at one of the rickety tables on the sidewalk, soaking up the sun as Ginnie tried to convince both of them that the inside of her Snapple cap had "YOU ARE THE ONE TRUE LOVE OF MAX BACKDERF" printed on the inside (Max objected mainly because there were too many syllables), Maddox went into the antiques shop next door, and began to take a look around.  
  
Maddox stood straight up as she walked in, shivering in the sudden cold of the air conditioning. Ducking through the aisles of antique doilies and hot water bottles, she exhibited a kind of sunburned grace in her tennis shoes and peppermint wafer-pink sundress, Ram's "DETROIT: ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE" sweatshirt looped around her shoulders to protect from the cold. Maddox was translucent skinned, skinny-legged and tall for a girl. She hadn't blossomed into womanhood as Ginnie had, but had been dragged up anyhow, and with her narrow hips and shoulders, fine dark hair that refused to do anything but fall stick-straight to her chin, constant summer sunburn and blush that went all the way to the tips of her ears, she resembled nothing so much as a lost girl from Never land. And, for someone who refused to consider growing up, maybe this wasn't all that bad.  
  
Maybe that was why she loved old photographs so much: all of them were moments trapped in time—a single moment,_ snapflash_, and frozen forever in youth, in a space or a feeling that could never be repeated again.  
  
It took her a long time to find the box of photos that was always at the back of every antique store. It was a small place, but packed to the rafters—with commemorative sugar-spoons, old singles on vinyl and shellac (Chubby Checker, Cab Calloway, and the ever immemorial Twisted Sister), comic books (The Green Lantern, The Flash), old button-up blouses and wedding-gowns, snowy lace baby pillows, tarnished sliver baby combs—and it took her a long time before she finally found what she was looking for, wedged between a Complete Tide-Table Listing and an old Singer sewing machine the size of a Buick.  
  
She knelt down in front of an old cardboard box, sorting through the old ripped glossies and sepia portraits of debutantes of a hundred years ago. There were pale-haired beauties with upturned noses and parted mouths, glossy curls bound into heavy coifs that hung down the backs of their necks, garlanded and by corsages of roses, scent almost emanating from the page. 

They were all different, of course—some of men in overcoats and business hats, posing for a formal portrait, some of matronly women drowning in lace, some family portraits of eight or nine children all sitting around a man and a woman, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.

The last photograph in the box was the only one without poses or lighting or far-off glances at middle distance—it was spontaneous, and Maddox was so glad to see it after a shoebox full of blushing prides and pompous businessmen that she almost laughed. It was an ancient newspaper clipping, yellowed with age and so fragile-looking that she held it by her fingertips. Twenty young faces from a hundred years ago: smiling, proud or startled by the flashbulb of the camera—blurred, seconds away from movement, invulnerable in their youth...all dead now...

"Whaddaya think, Maddie, are they me?" Ram asked loudly behind her, startling her so much that she jumped, nearly ripping the picture clean in two.

She turned around to see him with a pair of faded red suspenders clasped onto his jeans, a fantastic look of pride on his face. "Well?"

"They're marvelous, dahling."

"Y'think I could be on _Queer Eye for the Straight Guy _with them?"

Maddox grinned. "Definitely."

He raised an eyebrow quizzically. "Carson?"

"No. Jai."

"Dammit."

"Take a minute, Ram, and think about how many straight guys would actually admit to saying that..."

And while Ram went around asking innocent Brooklyners which member of the Fab 5 his brand new old red suspenders would look good on, Max sifted through an ancient Britannica, and Ginnie cooed over the black silk kimono she had found, a dragon embroidered on the back in golden thread as bright as the day it was woven, Maddox went to pay for the photograph: a scrap of the world, hers for the low, low price of fifteen cents.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was spent in that special school-sanctioned activity of Sightseeing, in which something that might have been normally enjoyable was a miserable activity to say the least (although Max promised to orchestrate a prison-break the next day, in which the four of them would escape the group and only return on the day of departure). So, on their first afternoon in the city, they had school-sanctioned Museum Visits while expressing school-sanctioned Opinions, then a school-sanctions Walk through the Park, and then, for dinner, a school-sanctioned trip to Chinatown, where they had a school-sanctioned dinner of dumplings and custard and steaming black tea.

It all got very tiring after a while.

They had their first non-school-sanctioned moments since noon just as the sun was setting, and they were set loose to browse in a shop next door to the restaurant. And Maddox (who for reasons that don't really have to be explained needed five minutes of solitude and a bag of Circus Peanuts, in that order) took this opportunity to slip up a narrow flight of stairs, and into a place where she could be alone for a few moments.

She fingered the clipping in her pocket as she pelted up the broken steps, first onto the second floor, then the third, the fourth, and finally the fifth, which was empty and utterly dark, the shutters drawn, closed against the last rays of the setting sun.

She moved to open them, but they were jammed; one milky filament of light reached the inside, cutting through the darkness and shedding no warmth.

Maddox took her hand out of her pocket, bringing it to the path of the last day's sun to watch it play against her skin. And she was surprised when instead of skimming her palm, it looped around her fingertip, taking hold. It went all down the flickering muscle of her hand, splintering across her forearm, up along her shoulder, and then, and then, and then...

Even as the fire took hold, there was no warmth.

And not much later than that, no light to be seen; so sound or scent, no touch. She was in a place now where none of that mattered.

_The time has come..._

[TBC...]

* * *

(dabs at her eyes with Jack's bandanna) First-shout-outs…

JACK: Hey! Dat's mine!

(blows her nose with a loud honking noise) Oh, d'you want it back?

JACK: Uh…you keep dat one.

YAY! (tackles)

JACK: AUGH!

* * *

**Sapphy: **Oh god! CHOICES! Nay! Shun the word!****

DALTON: I—

SHUN!

DALTON: (pause)

And this, from the guy who firsthand witnessed my existential crisis when faced with choosing between a cherry or a coke slushy? (wink) Guys...they just never seem to learn...

**Lute: **Oh, our Spotty-boy is _so _very much up to something. I mean, the guy's gotta keep up the waifish physique somehow, right?****

SPOT: ...I resent dat.

(clings) SPOTTY! JUST SAY NO!

**Matchin' Laces: (**high-fives) Creamy all the way! (does the creamy peanut butter dance, even though that hasn't actually been invented. Oh well. There should be one)****

And, of course...yay for constant crushingness...yeah, you know I'm like that too. (winks) All I care about is laaaahhhhhve!

JACK: CHEESE IT! SHE'S MUSICALISING!

**Ershey: **Hey, don't feel bad for not knowing what vices are...when I first saw Newsies, I had to look up "conflagration" in the dictionary. Not my proudest moment, by far...(grins) Vices are, I guess, either bad habits, or things you have weaknesses for...for instance, for me, "newsies fanfic" would fit under BOTH those categories... **Teepot: **Haha! I love your vices...just about perfectly explains my feelings towards world politics...

I actually haven't seen "The Neverending Story" in a long while also...I just refound my old grade-school copy and reread it...honestly, the movie was pretty bad. (Although you just have to admire how a neverending story needs a sequel...)

**m-e**** lee12: **Yay! (flying rugby tackles) GUYS! Thr press has spoken! They like it!****

DALTON: (excited) Who? New York Times, Boston Globe?

BETTER!

DALTON: Who then?

(grins) ...m-e lee...

DALTON: (sighs)

HEY! The girl knows what she's talkin' about!

**Klover: **high-fives Yay for tall girls! (grin) Hmm...twelfth in line you say? pause You wouldn't be...morally AVERSE to a few mob-related hits, would you? Might liven things up a little...

**Soaker: ** I guess everyone's got their vices when it comes to junk food, huh? Me, I'm a 7-11, Hostess Twinkies and blue-raspberry slurpees kinda gal myself...they way I see it, if you ingest that many chemicals, you have to develop bionic powers at SOME point.

**Moonlights Sundance: **I love your background. I was at a bookstore a few days ago and for some reason found myself flipping through a Pirate!Romance, and it was so bad that I vowed to make the pirate parts of fic just about as opposite to it as they could be...and let's just say that you've helped a whole lot on that front...

**Nani: **Gypsy royalty? Why didn't I think of that one? Well...in short... You rock. And isn't it true, what they say about peanut butter choice having a lot to do with your personality...****

DALTON: ...who says that?

I do.

DALTON: Oh.

**Strawberri Shake: **You've got a crime racket? Do you know that I've been asking for one of those for EVERY birthday since I was twelve?****

Mobsters, organized crime, thieving...y'know, all the lovely things that make life worth living? I gotta say, you know where it's at.

DALTON: But I thought bunnies and kittens and pink butterflies were what made life worth living?

Well...what about mobster butterflies?

DALTON: Oh. Okay!

**Uninvisible****: **AHH! Yes! NUTELLA! Food of the gods, it is...along with, of course, Velveeta, and Jell-O and shrimp n' lime Top Ramen...ALL that nutritious stuff... Man, ya just gotta love it.****

**Checkmate: **See, this is what I love about you guys... thank you! You just added an entire new dimension to the story (get it? Story? Dimension?) (Yes, I'm a loser). Love ya darlin'!****

**CiCi: **I love how you included scars in your profile! Gotta love 'em. 'Causeevery scar tells a story. (points to her knee) This one I got commandeering a pirate ship outside Barbados...

DALTON: Didn't you get that one falling of your bike when you were seven?

Shut up, Charlie...

**Chaos: **Y'know I'm seeing a pattern here? All the royalty seem to be going for creamy peanut butter, and all the toughies for chunky..._interesting..._

DALTON:You're gonna use that as your science project next year, aren't you?

Yep...

**Splashey: **I know! No Jack Sparrow...man, that was a hard decision... But if you're already in trouble for infringing the copyright on ONE movie, you wanna stay out of the red zone, y'know? Although there'll be some damn sexy pirates in this one two...actually, I'm beginning to wonder why I made any other characters at all...

**Ccat: **YAY for unintentional rhymes! I'm a total dork about those...all the time, I end up making a rhyme!****

DALTON: Can we please not start this again?

Start what, little hen?

DALTON: DAKKI! I MEAN IT!

...anybody wanna peanut?

DALTON: Oh, great...now you've got her quoting "The Princess Bride"...

**Sparks-a-go-go: ** TWO characters! You rock! My socks! And other assorted footwear! Sparks, you rock my pink Converse!****

DALTON: That doesn't rhyme.

...Do you want me to start rhyming again? ...Cause I could.

**BrooklynGrl: **nods I love the idea of a seer in this fic. Maybe a fortune teller? Madame Aurora? A crystal ball, perhaps?****

DALTON: You've been drinking the cherry cough syrup again, haven't you?

(nodnod)

**BabyXtreme: **Oh, man, I heart your profile...grin It's soooo cool. And I always loved anything involving amazons. Oh, and Lilandra?—coolest. Name. Ever.

**Rubix: **Hey, I always had trouble sharing too...y'know, I was the kid who got all OCD about the Play-Doh and wouldn't let anyone mix the colors together...I guess we all have our weaknesses... ****

**Buttons: **Ahh! _ The Joy Luck Club_! Love that book, own it, read it, re-read it, seen the movie...my favorite was always the chess prodigy...Waverly? That was great. And, yes...I just turned sixteen about a week ago. Of course, I'm still too immature to not cringe whenever I read the dumpling bit too...but then, what do you expect? winks****

**Coin: **So I'm not the ONLY one who eats peanut butter straight? YESSS! We rule! 'Cause god knows, ya gotta be a tough cookie to eat peanut butter right off the spoon.winks

**Almatari-of-arda: **Yay for us dye-addicted people! I'm currently in a mermaidy-green phase (it was supposed to be blue, but this is what happens when blondes try to color their hair...) but I just bought a lovely packet of cherry-red Kool-Aid...I figure I'm just giving nature a little upgrade...

**Brownie/Melody: **C'mon, Charlie, they're crayons, she'll give 'em back. What do you say?****

DALTON: B-but...the tips'll get all blunt...

Don't worry...by the time I'm done with him, he'll be a lean, mean, sharing machine...(winks)

**

* * *

**

**Next Up: **Chapter Two, In Which Dakki Gets To Include A Nifty Anime Quote and Our Plucky Heroine Is Left In A Pink World, Also Known As The Special Heaven Reserved For Medda Larkson (Not Really). (devilish grin)


	3. Cherry Blossom Girls

**Author's Note**: Well, I for one am shocked and appalled. No, not by your guys, of course—it goes without saying that you rock my socks, my purple tights, my wannabe cowboy boots and my pink Converse. Without your reviews, emails, and IM's I might not have an excuse to avoid Chemistry homework—so a great big shoutout to all of you, and cherry cough drops for everyone. (tosses cherry cough drops up like confetti) 

DALTON: Dak...something's going on...

(sighs) I know, Charlie...

DALTON: It happened again! (is shocked) OH MY GOD! I JUST DID IT! (terrified) ...Dakki, what's happening?

(sobs) MY ASTERISKS ARE GONE!

DALTON: (horrified) NO!

YES! (wails) I used to express action and adjectives with asterisks but ff.net deletes them all when I upload and now I have to use—

DALTON: Don't say it.

...PARENTHESES!

DALTON: (cowers) NOOOOOO!

(sniffs) ...and that's not the worst part.

DALTON: It isn't?

No! MY SQUIGGLIES ARE GONE! (sobs) My beautiful squiggly lines...I used you so often...to separate text and shoutouts...to show passage of time...and now...you're...GONE! (cries) _I'll never let go, squiggly..._

DALTON: ...I'll just walk this way, now...

(sobs) Adn now...on width the fbic! (blows her nose on Dalton's tie)

**Chinese Lantern**

**Chapter Three—**

**Cherry-Blossom Girls**

* * *

_"I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!"_ --Spirited Away 

* * *

To see the country of Möbia from the air is like looking at a box of crayons. Ever since the great separation of five hundred years ago, the country has been divided a spectrum of colors brighter than anything in another land.

In the north lies the great metropolis of Gliss, where everything is white, from the buildings that seem to glow with brightness in the sun, to the paving-stones underfoot, to the very clothing of the citizens: shades of sun-bleached bone and fresh-laid snow, a glimmering incandescence of feathers, from swans-down to the tail-plumes of the mourning dove, used in the lavish head-dresses of the princess's ladies-in-waiting.

And in the south lies Nour, the very mirror-image of its northern counterpart—a haven of wanton lust and addiction, an underground city of ink and pitch coal-burning behemoths, where even the air is dark with ashes and soot; and wrought-iron grates and walls and catwalks keep the sun from touching the faces of all but the richest and most powerful. Everyone is clad in black, with the exceptions of the courtesans, the hothouse roses of the Dall Mansions: dark-haired, soft-eyed girls born for the profession, trained from childhood for their craft, clad from dawn to midnight in exquisite shades of pink, from the ribbons in their hair to the slippers on their feet.

Gliss and Nour: two great cities lying at either end of the country, one dark, one light. Half a millennium ago, villagers from all corners of the land of Möbia picked up their belongings and chose which city they and their children would make their lives in. Few people remained outside either city, living in a world neither white nor black. It was they who made up the rest of the prism that was the country of Möbia.

After five-hundred and eighteen years of equilibrium, Spot Conlon was the first person in half a millennium to successfully infiltrate the high-walled Southern city of Nour. Instead of seeking a way inside through the city gates he had fallen through the spot that opened up, for just an instant, once every five hundred years: a place where the gossamer separating one world from the next wore thin, just wide enough for him to tumble through.

And when he walked between the worlds, he tore a hole that dragged through his time and that of another as well; he brought two universes together, changed lives, and made sure that nothing in either his existence or theirs would ever be the same again.

But of course, Spot didn't know any of this yet…he was still asleep, living in the dreamless slumber of oblivion, a luminous Chinese lantern in shades of deepest cherry set aglow above his head, dreams caught and set ablaze in its fragile, papery trappings.

* * *

Maddox liked to think that she reacted well during times of duress. She was known for having grace under fire, even if she was totally without it the rest of the time, and took pride in the fact that she didn't panic easily.

But when, that fateful day, she was roused by the door banging open and a severe looking woman with tightly bound black hair grabbing hold of her and yanking her up—from the silken sheets of the bed she hadn't even known she had been in—it was hardly above her to lose a little control.

The woman, the first thing Maddox had seen since the night before, when—what had happened? What? But there was no time for that now—was talking almost too rapidly to be made out, holding Maddox tightly by the shoulder.

"Look at you! Nearly noon and you're lounging around slovenly as the day clean—"

"But I'm not—"

"Do you expect to make any money like this? Lying about all dressed up and no place to go?" The woman poked her sharply in the collarbone, right where it hurt. "Well?"

Maddox stared at her, fully aware of the fact that her cheeks were burning bright red.

"Got something to say, girl?"

Maddox bit her tongue, looked down, and up at the woman again. "I don't belong here," was all she could manage.

For whatever reason the woman's look softened a little at this, and she relinquished her vice grip on Maddox's shoulder. "None of us do," she said at last.

Maddox just looked at her, for once unable to speak.

"Go get yourself washed up," the woman said at last. "I don't want any more trouble from you, you hear? And find something to eat, too. Skin and bones doesn't sell, child." And with that she banged out of the room, off to check on the other girls.

Gingerly rubbing her temples, Maddox sat up and took a look at her surroundings. It was a plain room, and with its wooden-shuttered windows and whitewashed walls, it was identical in structure to the room in Chinatown where she could last remember being. But that was where the similarity ended. Because while the room last night had been empty and sparse, this one was lavish and richly decorated and—perhaps the strangest thing of all—furnished completely in shades of pink.

The sheets and coverings on the bed where she had been shaken awake were a fine silk the color of pink champagne, and the heavy duvet lumpily heaped over it was laced with a richly embroidered velvet filigree in a dark and luxurious shade of cherry. A stained mauve rug was thrown across the floor, and pink linen screen had been placed next to the door. Even the pale wood of the writing-desk in the corner seemed to have the faintest pink glow from the light cast by the paper Chinese lantern hanging over the bed.

_So,_ Maddox thought. _I'm not where I was before; I've fallen headfirst into a time-warp or a rip in the space-time continuum or a weak spot in the twenty-third dimension, and now I'm stuck here, in a boarding-school or a hotel or a prison or—_she looked around at her surroundings once again—_or a Molly Ringwald movie, or _something_, with no way to get back home, alone in the world, whatever world this might be _(of course she was wrong about that very last part, as you and I know full well that one of the lumps under the duvet was Spot Conlon, still completely unconscious. But she would find that out soon enough).

_So_, Maddox thought. _What would Brian Boitano do?_

She was having a rare moment of calm, and she knew that it would dissolve into blind panic if she didn't make a decision soon. Standing there in the middle of the room, drowning in blusher shades, she suddenly remembered the two pieces of advice that Ram's mother Sachi had always given her. The first one was _never let your country become a trading-post_, and the second one went like this: _life always looks better on a full stomach, Maddie. Are you sure you don't want more lamb?_

The dining hall that the severe woman had spoken of was on the top floor of the Dall Mansions, one of the few places in the city that ever received natural light. When Maddox arrived up top, around noon, it was as if she was finally breathing again after an eternity if navigating the labyrinthine corridors of the rooms below. The top floor was all glass and fragile pinkish light, the sun slanting down like shards of glass and falling across the high-vaulted rooms in dusty shafts, making the silk and satin trappings of the girls milling around below seem to glister with gold threads shot-through.

Whoever these girls were, they lived in luxury. Without a boy or man in sight they skipped through hands clasped, arm-in-arm, tumbling up the stairwells, giggling with one another over shared jokes as they took their places in the lunch line and loaded their trays down with food—sweet bean cakes and steaming pots of jasmine tea, ceramic bowls heaped with dumplings and egg noodles and perfumed rice. The building was as hot and humid as a greenhouse, warm enough to force flowers into bloom before they had even grown, and most of the girls looked as if they had just tumbled out of bed in short little slips of things ranging from shell-pink to cherry, fine silk pajamas hanging loose around their shoulders and stiff embroidered robes belted at the waist. Some still even had sleep in their eyes.

No one looked at Maddox twice as she went along the lunch counter and filled her tray. To them, she was just another member of their group, another girl scrabbling out her existence in the Dall Mansions—and in her rumpled pink sundress and faded tennis shoes, who could have supposed otherwise when she wore their colors, even if the fabric was strange and the style one unseen outside the blue-skin gypsy encampments up north? After all, who could blame the poor thing—from that nervous look she was probably just starting out, with no money for new silks or satins, but she would make her way soon enough.

The girls didn't think anything of it as Maddox sat down at a small table in a far corner and tucked into her lunch. But when Spot came upstairs a few minutes later, well—_that _was another story. Even before they started staring in earnest he became more anxious than he had been in weeks, because he didn't know where he was, but with this going on now, and the events of the night before clean in his memory, he realized that this situation simply couldn't be good. But then again, boys never seem react all that well in a room full of pink.

Maddox's table was small and quiet and out of sight, and so Spot sat down there, across from her. She only noticed him when he stole a noodle from her bowl, and then she looked up to see a worried-looking boy with blue eyes who seemed (in the words of Wayne and Garth, and Ram, of course) like he was gonna hurl. _He's partied out, man._ Maddox suppressed a giggle and took a sip of her tea.

"Wha'?" the boy asked, slightly on-edge.

"Nothing." She smiled at him, and was rewarded when a little of the anxiousness left his face. There was something familiar about him, even though she couldn't quite place it. She extended a hand to him. "I'm Maddie."

"Spot." And then there was a troubled silence for a few minutes, where he looked uncomfortably around him at the girls peering in on all sides. Tracing her finger along the edge of her bowl, Maddox searched for the right think to say.

"So…" she said, uncomfortably. "How 'bout those Red Sox?"

It was possibly the stupidest thing that she could have possibly said—but the conversation just progressed from there. And maybe Spot didn't feel it, but Maddox did—that they were linked somehow, and meeting up not for a first time but as old friends who had simply forgotten each other. At any rate, she managed to tell him everything that happened, toying with the rim of her teacup and keeping her discretion at a minimum, because what else could she do? When she looked up, he was staring at her wide-eyed, grains of rice falling out of his mouth and onto the table. And maybe he still believed it was a dream—but he told her anyway after that, everything he knew, and by the end of that they were in no position to let go of each other.

"I still can't believe this ain't all a dream," Spot murmured, absentmindedly eating one of Maddox's dumplings.

"I know. It's like _Labyrinth_ or something."

"Huh?"

"Y'know…the eighties movie, with David Bowie in really tight pants?" She was rewarded with another blank look. "Sorry, I shouldn't assume. Ram and I are probably the only ones who like that movie, anyway…"

"What's a…what's a movie?"

Maddie stared at him a moment, watching as he took a sip of her tea. "Spot, level with me here--are you Canadian?"

"A _what?_"

She grinned. "Never mind…"

He looked at her, smiling. She wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, or the most agreeable, or event he type he would have looked twice at—too skinny for one, and with her pointed little face and dark hair she seemed to bear an astonishing resemblance to a badger, although he never would have told her that. But he didn't want to take her home, to get her out of her clothes—he just needed someone as clueless as he was, so he didn't have to be alone, not now.

"Look," he said, for once giving up on pride, and shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he heard what he was saying. "We're in this together now. I figure two heads are better 'n one, so…friends?"

She smiled. "Friends." He hid his smile and reached out to take another of her egg noodles. "But Spot?"

"Yeh?"

"Get your own friggin' lunch."

Fair enough.

After Spot went through the lunch line, walking proud bantam rooster despite his constant wish to physically shield himself from the glares he was receiving from all the girls, he came back to their table to see a girl sitting next to Maddox, trying hard to draw him out of her shell. She was a pretty thing, with glossy dark hair that fell to her shoulders and sweet brown almond eyes, but the overwhelming feature, as usual, was pink—this time in a coral lace-trimmed slip and a robe in a shocking shade of fuchsia that barely reached past the tops of her thighs. As Spot walked over, she looked up, a surprised expression on her face.

"A _boy_ in the top floor the Dall Mansions," she said to Maddox in a stagy whisper. "Off-duty, no less? Pretty risqué, hen…"

"Is he contraband?" Maddox asked.

The girl looked at her a moment. "You're new here, aren't you?" Maddox nodded. "I'm Ershey, by the way. Williams."

"Maddox."

Unnoticed, Spot sat down at the table and began to eat his lunch.

"He's not against the rules, exactly," Ershey was saying. "Girls just resent it, you know, when they're brought into our areas. Where they don't need to be."

This was a relief to Spot. He had been wondering if there was something wrong with his hair.

"I mean, we see enough of them as it is…you understand?"

"Sure," Maddox nodded, even though she clearly didn't.

"Look," Ershey sighed, "why don't I show you around after lunch? You seem a bit—"

"Like a total idiot?"

She grinned, biting her lip a little. "Kind of. And he…" she looked uncomfortably at Spot.

"I'se goin' for a walk," Spot announced. "Always helps me think, y'know?"

"Good luck with that," Ershey murmured. From the look in her eyes, it was clear that she meant it.

[TBC...]

* * *

** Shout-outs!**

**Sapphy**: Hey, what's a modern-day chapter without as many pop-culture references as possible crammed in? (grin) Oh, and Ram says he'd be glad to marry you, as long as you don't get in the way of his career on Broadway—he intends to be the first-ever male Elphaba...  
  
**ershey**: YAY! (munches cookies) Mmm...(as Homer Simpson) Macamadamia nut... (distributes the rest to the boys, so none of them will get jealous)  
  
NEWSIES: YAY! (are ershey-worshippers)  
  
Heehee. (grins)  
  
**Soaker**: G-get...g-get it...published? (faints) (wakes up again) Oh, that makes me all warm and fuzzy...but you know I just could never abandon our boys. (winks)  
  
**Coin**: Another Bender-lover in our midst? (glomps) Heehee. Just for that, you get your very own polka-dotted socks...just as soon as I knit some for the newsies...(whispers) Racey gets pink!  
  
**Ccatt**: Oh yes, suspense is a VERY good thing. (winks) Although hopefully not of the Nancy Drew variety...if I start writing like that ("gosh!" Spot exclaimed. "And to think that all this time...), feel free to shoot me.  
  
**me lee12: **AAH! types frantically Don't shoot!

NEWSIES: (hold water guns threateningly) BWAHAHAHAHA!**  
  
Klover: **(takes out her legal pad [is there such a thing as an illegal pad?]) ...Mobster hits okay...no death...got it! I'll just TP their houses within an inch of their lives...(wink)**  
  
Sparks-a-go-go: **Aww...glomps You TOTALLY rock my purple tights. (sighs) I wish I had socks with sparkly Rudolphs on them...might help me update faster...(winkwink) (grins)**  
  
Strawberri Shake: **YES! (high-five) Gotta love the mobster butterflies! (Not to mention the drug-dealing squirrels.) And since Ram heard you say _Grease _rocks, he's started singing it all over again, which means that I can listen to him...without even having to feed him a quarter! (high-fives Strawberri Shake)**  
  
NadaZimri: **(glares threateningly at ff.n admin) (do you see what's happening here? I'm using PARENTHESES to denote action! (sobs) I miss my asterisks! (pause) Oh, wait...this is text.) That's better! (clears throat) And only WE, the caped crusaders, Mattie and Dakki, can put a stop to this travesty! For together we are...(dun-dun-dunnn...) THE PUNCTUATION JUSTICE LEAGUE! (cue nifty theme song...NOW!)**  
  
Brownie/Melody: **(joins in singing)There are worse things...I could do...then go with a boy...or twoooo (grins) LOVE that movie. I agree—I don't know what I would do if _Grease _wasn't around. Die, probably. Then, round up the cast members, and make up for lost time...(wink)**  
  
Splashey: **Haha! No, not all shout-outs...just MOSTLY. (grins) Glad I stumped ya there for a second... (perks up) Chinatown? Tea? (pause) ...Can _I_ come too?**  
  
Buttons14: **HAHA! Feelin' greasy! Oh my side! (grins) You rule...and I've always wondered about the title too. Isn't it like calling an eighties movie _Aquanet_? (pause) Whoa. (runs off to pitch the idea) THANK YOU BUTTONS! (blows kiss)**  
  
Nani: **Nah, not gay...just a Broadway lovin' straight guy (even though I still think they're mutually exclusive). All I know is, I wish my guy friends had a little more Ram in them...honestly! You'd think bursting into song for no apparent reason was a BAD thing!**  
  
Moonlights Sundance: **Aww! (hugs) Glad you liked! And, yeah, I thought the last chapter was a little wonky too...but the rest are gonna be pretty straightforward...or at least, as straightforward as newsies riding dragons can GET. (winks)**  
  
Silver ****Petra**: (tips her hat) (remembers she isn't wearing one) Dammit! Well, anyway...thankee kindly. (grins and goes to fix her bangs)

**Checkmate: **YAY! (catches bag of Circus Peanuts and does the touchdown dance) Hello little orangey peanut thing...you shall be mine...and I shall call you...INSPIRATION!

**BabyXtreme: **(sigh) Right there with ya on that one...I love that movie _so _much. "You know how you say your parents use you to get back at each other? ...Wouldn't I be _outstanding _in that capacity?" (melts)

* * *

**Next up:** Chapter Four, In Which Dakki Goes All Psychodrama About Her Asterisks Again, Jack Is Discovered To Have A Really Funny Middle Name, And Christina Aguilera Stars As Our Special Musical Guest (Except For The Christina Aguilera Part, Oh Well, Maybe Next Time. (wink))


	4. It's Not Easy Being Green

**Author's Note: **Guess what? Guess what? GUESS WHAT?

DALTON: (tiredly) _What?_

I'VE SOLVED THE ASTERISK PROBLEM!

DALTON: Really? (perks up) How?

Lookie!

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

…It's a succession of periods and commas typed at even intervals! It's like asterisk-wavy thing-asterisk-wavy-thing…yet simpler, and more refined. (pause) I am a genius.

DALTON: Well, that's great, but…it still doesn't solve the asterisks-used-to-denote-action-problem, does it?

(pause)

CURSES! Foiled again!

Well… (sigh) in short…a big hug to all you guys, 'cause you're what's keeping me sane during this prolonged crisis. Shout-outs are at the end of the chappie, and grab a complementary snickerdoodle as you leave. (winks) Dalton's personal recipe…

…And now, on with the fic!

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

**Chinese Lantern**

**Chapter Four—**

**"It's Not Easy Being Green"**

.,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

_"Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl…'cause it hurts like hell."_

_ --_David Bowie, "Underground"

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

Ershey's room was on one of the uppermost floors of the Dall mansions, not quite as high up as it needed to be to catch any real sunlight, but enough so that it was spared from the worst of the layers of grime that seemed to permeate the lower levels. On the very first floors, where the girls stayed when they were starting out, they left their rooms clean and faintly glowing each morning only to come back every night to find a greasy soot of ashes settled like snow on everything from their bedclothes to their robes. The room that Maddox had woken up in that morning had, apparently, been one of the better ones—although, compared to the luxury she saw now, it was nothing.

Ershey's quarters were four sprawling rooms furnished with thick carpets and polished wooden furniture, closets full of satin and silk and air heavy with the fragrance of hothouse blooms. It was lush and opulent, but much more importantly, it was her own—fixtures spotless with care, shelves crammed with the books she was ridiculed by the lesser women for loving, for the ability to read was a rarity among the girls of the Dall Mansions. Certainly they all lived well here—these women who bathed in milk and roses and wore diamonds at the breakfast-table—but Ershey had an even better life; she lived almost completely on her own terms. Even after a cursory tour of the Dall Mansions surroundings, it was clear that this freedom was hard won.

Maddox was astonished as she set foot in Ershey's apartments, and even after the sticking lock had been prized open and Ershey had wandered in, tugging off her slippers and strolling into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water, Maddox was still standing dumbstruck beneath the lintel, almost frozen at the sight of such luxury.

"My God," she murmured. "Ershey. It's beautiful."

"Well, it should be," she called from over her shoulder. "I've been here since I was twelve."

Already with a fairly good idea of what the Dall Mansions were, Maddox didn't really like to think about this.

"Goddess," Ershey muttered a few moments later, as she padded into the living room, a glass of water in hand as she pulled her robe tightly around herself. "It's _frigid _in here. The heating must be on the fritz."

The rooms were hot and humid as a greenhouse, but Maddox didn't say anything, in part because in comparison with everything else she had dealt with today, this was almost close to normal.

Maddox sat down on a divan in the corner of the room, and watched as Ershey pulled on a loose woolen cardigan in a shade of pink so pale it was almost white, the sleeves falling well past her wrists and the fabric hanging beautifully from her narrow shoulders, over the coral of her lace-trimmed half slip. She pinned up her dark curls, crossed her arms, and sat down on the carpet, sipping at her water.

"Are you still cold?" she asked, gesturing to Maddox's (rather plain and rather rumpled) pink cotton sundress.

"Not really," she said, politely. "Um. Ersh?"

She smiled. "Yes'm?"

"Why does everybody here wear pink all the time?"

She frowned as she contemplated this, twisting a lock of hair around her forefinger as she thought. "Well, I suppose there are quite a few social and governmental reasons for the typical dress of the Dall Mansions, but overall I'd have to say—"

"No," Maddox cut in. "I mean, _why does everybody here wear pink all the time?_" Ershey looked at her, somewhat confused. "Do me a favor here—talk to me like I'm four."

"We wear pink," Ershey said, slowly enunciating each word, "because it's what the courtesans wear. All of us. For ever and ever."

"But why do the courtesans wear it?"

It was clear from the happy look on her face and the way she got up and began to pace around as she spoke that Ershey loved being asked questions like this, and that it also happened very rarely.

"No one really knows why," she began. "Ever since the great war back half a millennia ago, everyone's worn colors to show who they are, and separate regions have been marked by the clothing and uniforms…so the Nouris wear black, of course, and the courtesans pink, and up north in the Glissians always wear white—well, cream or pale yellow if they're really daring—and the lands between…"

Ershey knelt next to Maddox, tracing the paths and curves of a map of the country in one of her atlases from up on the high shelves, showing how the colors came to vivid brightness and then graded together and became something else—the coastal people up north with clothes and skin and hair of gold, fading away into the silverfish barren expanse of the badland deserts before the pale-glowing gem of Gliss; the Ivory Mountains and the caravans of gypsies that traveled up and down the middle counties, wearing always shades of blue, from cobalt to forget-me-not, because in the oldest strains of gypsy blood the people had skin as blue as their clothing. And how the encampments of the blue-skin gypsies slowly gave way to the witches and the hermits and mystics in the dry timberlands before the coast, with their shawls and rough-spun wool of the purest purple—and of the Blood Pirates of Crimson Harbor, with their turbans and leather boots bright as rubies; and the peasants, and the thieves in the northern forests, and every other outlaw and murderer and mystic in the land of Möbia.

"…But of course you know all this," Ershey said at last, after they had pored over the atlas for a good amount of time. "Surely, wherever you come from, you've known of this before."

Maddox hadn't.

And what of that boy that she had been supping with in the dining hall today? Where had she met him? And how had she turned up so suddenly?

"Look," Maddox said. "You have to promise me you won't think I'm crazy."

Ershey promised.

After Maddox finished speaking, she was staring at her open-mouthed, with an expression no one could have gauged.

"I told you it was insane," Maddox began, meekly, but Ershey didn't seem to hear her.

"Goddess," she said. "I always thought it was a myth…"

"You believe me?" Maddox asked in disbelief.

She swallowed. "Against my better judgment…yes. This is incredible." She paused. "…There's only one person to see about this. Coin."

"Coin?"

"Well…her real name's Anna Carrigy, but no one calls her that. She's top girl here, and she got her nickname because she'll cost you a pretty penny. We used to be close, when we were girls, and…well, she knows everything there is to know about Möbian history, the great color-war, and the worldwall theory…" she trailed off.

"Can I see her today?" Maddox asked, quietly.

"Probably not. But I can get a conference with her tomorrow, and—oh, Goddess…" she looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece. "I've completely lost track of time. I've got three separate charges tonight, one from the high Nouri court…" Ershey bit her lip. "Listen, Maddie…would it be really terrible if I were to set you up in a room on one of the lower levels, just to stay in tonight? I mean, they're not much, just a bed, and it's only to sleep in, but…"

"It would be perfect," Maddox said, and was rewarded with a smile. "Hey Ersh?"

"Yes?"

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Racetrack would always remember the exact moment that Spot Conlon officially went AWOL, because at the moment Jack came in with the news, he was sitting on his bunk, just beginning to seriously contemplate buying a new pair of socks.

Sock-buying was a very important part of Racetrack's life. Wet socks or socks with holes in the toes could ruin an otherwise decent afternoon, whereas a nice new pair of thick, warm, dry, woolen socks could make him deliriously happy for weeks. So when Jack walked into the bunkroom, looking distinctly like he was about to throw up, Race was so deep in thought that he barely even registered it.

"Hey Jack?" he began. "D'you think I should spring for a new pair a' socks? These ones aren't so bad but they're worn all thin an' there's this little hole in the toe, so—"

Jack looked around the room, oblivious, running a nervous hand through his hair. "Dis is the worst thing that's evah happened ta me…"

Race was taken about. "Gee, Cowboy, it ain't that big of a hole…"

Jack looked at him. "No, not _that_. It's Spot I'se worried about."

Race nearly jumped out of his skin. "They're stained too? I didn't even notice! Wheah—" but of course he couldn't continue after that, as Mush had clamped his hand firmly over his mouth.

"Mmph," Race said indignantly.

"This isn't the time to be worryin' about your socks, Race," Mush said solemnly, at which point Kid Blink laughed so hard that he nearly choked.

"Shh," Mush said, sternly. "I think he's gonna say somethin'."

Jumping up on top of one of the bunks, Jack stuck a valiant pose. "That's right!" he crowed, even though no one had bothered to say anything yet. "Spot Conlon has been missing these last seven days—and only I, Jack Kelly, leader of the Manhattan newsies, formerly known as Francis K. Sullivan, can—"

"What's da 'K' stand foah?" Race piped up, having managed to get Mush's hand away from him mouth.

"Um…" Jack paused, looking intently at the ground. "It's…Kermit."

"HAHAHAHAHAHA! KERMIT!"

"Race!" Jack hissed. "Shut _up! _You're ruinin' my speech!"

"Hey, I call an election!" Race yelled. "Who wants a leader without a stupid middle name?"

A number of hands went up at this. Jack sighed. "Race. Your middle name is _Elmo._"

"It's better than Kermit, though, ain't it? _Kermie_?"

"It's _Gaelic!_" Jack sputtered. "It means 'proud warrior'!"

"It means you're a pansy, is what it means…" Race muttered.

"You wanna say that to my face, Elmo?"

There wasn't a lot that could be done to avoid the ensuing fistfight; eventually, all the other boys could do was gather around, cheer on Jack and Race as they attempted to kill each other and make bets as to who would win. In the end, it was a draw—both ended up sprawled on the ground, Racetrack with a bloody nose and Jack with a purplish bruise blossoming on his forehead and a sizable fat lip.

"So," he said, meekly continuing his speech once they were both lying side-by-side, spent (although it came out more like "tho," due to his aforementioned mouth injuries). "So—I'm gonna try to find Spot. You guys behind me on this one?"

With what little strength he had left, Race reached out and ruffled his hair, speaking for all of them. "Sure thing, Jacky-boy."

"Yeah?"

"Aw, c'mon now. What are friends for?"

[TBC…]

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

**A/N: **Well, that was thoroughly ridiculous. But there's nothing more fun that torturing the heck out of Our Boys—and if you had half as much fun reading this as I did writing it, well, I had twice as much fun as you.

DALTON: …I don't get it.

(smiles) Nor should you, Nuwanda, my pet. Now…on to shout-outs!

DALTON: YAY!

(easily pleased, isn't he?) (winks)

**Klover: **I have to confess…(sobs) I'm a pink person. It was pretty intense when I was a kid and I never dream about sequins anymore, I swear to God—almost never—and I've gone five years without a hair ribbon…(stands up) Hello…my name is Dakki…and I…(dramatic pause)…am a pinkaholic. (breaks down crying)

** Buttons: **(gasps) "Back to the Future"! Marty! AAH! Michael J. …is he ever a Fox? (giggles and high-fives) Oh, you've got the quotathon started now… ("That's your name, isn't it? …It's all over your underwear…")

** Nani: **sings Looooove…is a many splendored thing…tralalalalalaaaa…I don't know…the lyrics…hums contentedly

** Ccatt: **Never fear, m'dear (hey! I rhymed! (is momentarily distracted))…I print fics out all the time. The way I see it, staring at a computer screen for hours on end just _can't _be good for the soul…

** NadaZimri: **Oh, we SO can fly! (grins in that way that makes Dalton hide under the bed) And other assorted superpowers…for instance, I have the power of unlimited free Krispry Kremes. Oh yes…it is good to be a caped crusader…(winks)****

** Sapphy: **Welll…Ram says that normally he wouldn't go all-out for a wedding, but for _you_, Sapphinatrix (his words, notmine) he'd get you a real classy affair—a Little White Chapel wedding in Vegas, with Idina Menzel there to sing "Purple Rain." (grins) I'll be sure to buy you a toaster oven…

**Rubix: **YAY! IM's! (glomps) My favorite thing…next to, you know, kittens and brown paper packages and the like… (wink)****

**Ershey: **Could I resist newsie-rap? COULD I? The answer is no…I'm just saving it for later chapters, when Jack is most sleep-deprived and homicidal…ahh, how I so love to torture that boy…winks

** Coin: **(gasp) You have pink Converse too? (glomps) YAY! SOUL SISTERS!

DALTON: You know, the company probably has manufactured millions of pairs of—

Charlie. Dude. Stay out of it. clings to Coin

DALTON: sigh

** Soaker: **sobs I KNOW! My asterisks! My squiggly things! MY ASTERISKS AND SQUIGGLY THINGS!

DALTON: Who else thinks this is getting a bit repetitive?

everyone raises their hands

**Sparks****: **(gasps) NO! Not the updatedness! (sobs) Oh, and btw…that email you sent me…computer ate it…kicks at aol could you send it by my way again dahling?

DALTON: I thought you were crying?

Oh, right…sobs

DALTON: _Much _better.****

** m-e lee12: **sighs I _love _Labyrinth…yep, totally bizarre, you gotta admit it but then…so are pelvic thrusting turn-of-the-century street kids, right? …You just gotta love it.

** Checkmate: **Circus Peanuts…inspiration…what's the difference? Both of them are equally delicious and orange.

DALTON: (hides)

Teehee.

** Teepot: **Somehow, me not including Jack would be like the UN going on Fear Factor…that is, Just Plain Wrong. Like Dalton in a tutu. Suffice it to say, our Jacky boy's so gonna be in it. And the confusedness? All part of my master plan. (evil laugh)

DALTON: (pirouettes)

** CiCi: **Yes! (gasp) The Fieries! Love those guys! sigh Ahh, childhood memories…

DALTON: Didn't you last see that movie about a week ago?

(sighs) Charlie?

DALTON: Yeah?

Shut up.

** Splashey: **(sighs) I love that song! My and my friends all call it "Pants, Magic Pants," though, for…well…obvious reasons. (wink)

** BrooklynGrl: **Me, not put you in? Inconceivable! Unbelievable! Im—

DALTON: _Please _stop rhyming.

…That's very bad timing.

** BabyXtreme: **Sadly, I have not seen any of his other movies…I'm tragically poorly-exposed when it comes to Anime. As for Spirited Away, though, I truly love it, and some of the idea for this fic came from it…even though Dalton's terrified of No-Face…

DALTON: SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP.

Teehee.

.,.,.,.,.,.,

** Next Up: **Chapter Five—In Which Spot Acts Very FanLust Inducingly, We Meet The Lovely And Mysterious Coin, Some Of This Mess Gets A Little Cleared Up, And Dakki Is Upset About Her Askerisks. Again.

DALTON: _Again?_

(grins devilishly) Again.

DALTON: sighs


	5. Up on the Catwalk

DALTON: Things are not going well back at the fort…

(is sitting sprawled on the sofa in her pajamas, watching the very last scene of _Newsies_ and switching from frame-to-frame with the remote) Now, watch as Davey's shirt changes—

Clean...DIRTY! Clean...DIRTY! Clean...DIRTY! Clean…

DALTON: She's without her squigglies for three weeks, and this is what happens…

They were like family to me! Tell me, Charlie—without my squigglies, what do I _have _in this world?

DALTON: Um…well…(cough) Me! (cough)

Oh, are you coming down with a cold, Nuwanda?

DALTON: (sobs)

Um. Anyway…

To make Charlie happy, I'll grace you with a late disclaimer about what I do and do not own (Dalton loves disclaimers. He loves them. Actually, I don't think he's ever quite as happy as when he's writing one out). So, apart from the eighteen bajillion pop culture references (which I won't list here, because it would take up a good bit of memory and since I'm writing this on a computer that's older than I am, that might not be the best idea) I also don't own any of the swell OC's submitted by authors, twenty-five total (all of which I am using, you codfish, so worry your pretty little heads about something else (wink))

DALTON: (happily) My love…

(pats Dalton on the head) …And now, on with the fic!

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

**Chinese Lantern**

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

**Chapter Five—**

**Up on the Catwalk**

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

_"I'd rather like a twenty carat earring, ha ha—_

_If I'm not pure, at least my jewels are!"_

_ --Candide_

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Whenever the world seemed like too much to deal with, Spot Conlon went for a walk. It was as simple as that. When he felt bad, he went outside and wandered through his kingdom, and always, at the end of the day, he felt better.

Whenever Maddox was depressed, she went to the drugstore and bought a new toothbrush. Something about bright plastic and new bristles was always oddly comforting and cheerful, and you can't take yourself too seriously when you're holding something sparkly and day-glow pink. But Maddox didn't know where she would come by a toothbrush in the Dall Mansions, so when Ershey showed her to her room that night—a tiny cubicle, barely big enough for a mattress—she turned out the lights, collapsed in bed, and sank into a deeper kind of darkness. And Spot went for a walk outside.

It didn't take long for him to find his way out of the Dall Mansions. He did his best to retrace his steps up to the dining hall, ignoring once again the glares of the women clustered around tables and taking their coffee out on the balcony, and by the time Spot got there it didn't take much detective work to find his way to the double doors that led outside.

He stepped out, and immediately found himself suspended in midair. The city was hundreds of feet below him, the soot and smoke nearly camouflaging the people making their way around the crowded streets and thoroughfares in the dripping heat, making them almost seem like elementals, parts of the very atmosphere…he could see the whole city, the buildings and cobblestones and stalls and shacks that stretched out for as far as he could see and then farther. All that separated him from it was miles of lacy gridiron catwalks and fire escapes. The whole city was in his grasp, and all he could see was black.

He grasped the handrail tightly, noticing the grease and soot that came off on his palms, and looked up—far up, above the Dall Mansions, a few dirty panes, cracked and splintered like a pattern of frost, let slip through a few milky shards of sunlight. That was the only real light he saw. The entire city below—a song of turning gears and vendor's cries, hot as the seventh circle of Hell—lived without sun, without light, without warmth.

With a sigh, Spot let go of the rails, and began his slow descent into the metropolis below.

He couldn't have guessed how long he was down there. He wandered the knotted streets, ignoring guttersnipes, whores of all kinds, thieves with knives in their boots, the drunks, the hawkers, the gangs. He felt his way along the corners and the sides of buildings, pressing his body up against the walls, as soot fell dark on his brow and cheeks, staining his clothes like blackened snow, settling in the whorls of his ears. Spits of cinders stung his eyes; he found a half-hidden door leading underground, found himself in some murky dive and saw men at the bar filtering something green and poisonous through the grain of sugar cubes, sitting behind the counter as they stared out the dark windows, lighting match after match. They laughed and with blackened hands gave him something to drink that made his eyes cloud up, and, hoping that his mind would cloud as well, he had five glasses and then stumbled outside, leaning against the wall, all the time scanning the streets.

It was only as he was walking away that it occurred to him what he was looking for—children. The entire time he had been down here, he hadn't seen a single child.

It was sometime between midnight and dawn when the knock came on Maddox's door. She struggled into the waking world, the covers binding her tightly as she came away from a dream, she opened the door to see Spot leaning in the corridor with a black eye and a ripped collar, almost asleep on his feet.

"You look a little spiffed," she remarked.

He shuffled in, apparently having not heard, and had just enough energy to kick off his shoes before he fell into the bed next to her, burying his face in her neck, feeling how soft and clean she was, and closing his eyes against the coolness of her skin…

She switched off the lamp and lay down, letting him curl around her, on the edge of sleep. "How did you know where I was?"

"I didn't know. Jus' knocked on all the doors 'till I found out." He burrowed more deeply under the covers, and was out like a light.

Resting her head against the pillow, Maddox ran a hand gently through Spot's hair, full of static from the air outside. As she threaded her fingers through, down at the nape of his neck, she felt a little shock on the tips of her fingers—the tiniest bit of electricity, enough to see her way. She ran her hands along his forehead, and watched the sparks fly.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

At dawn the next morning, Ershey came knocking at the door, holding a tray with coffee and sugar, bread and some condensed milk. She raised a quizzical eyebrow when she saw Spot curled up in the corner of the mattress, and setting the tray on the rug, she sat down next to Maddox on the bed.

"A freebie, on your first day?" She clicked her tongue in mock-consternation. "Pardon me for saying this, hen, but you don't seem to be making much progress…"

Maddox rolled her eyes before falling upon the breakfast tray, devouring the food ravenously. She smiled when she saw Ershey staring at her with a mix of awe and disgust. "What? I haven't eaten in days."

"You ate lunch _yesterday_, you pig."

"…Same difference."

"What an odd grammatical construction," Ershey remarked, as Maddox tore into a slice of bread. "Honestly, the semantics used where you come from are quite bizarre. _Same difference_. But how could a difference be the same? How could—"

"Ersh," Maddox interrupted, "you know I love you, I really do, but are we going to do anything today, or just sit around playing syntax hockey for the entire morning?"

Ershey stared at her a moment, and almost looked as if she was going to ask another question, but caught herself just in time. "I have everything worked out," she said primly. "We're going up to visit Coin this morning. If anyone will know what to do, it's her. Oh, and you can borrow some of my clothes, of course," she added.

"Thanks a lot," Maddox teased.

Ershey just smiled, too preoccupied to notice the sarcasm. "It's no trouble. And your friend—"

"Spot has to come," Maddox interrupted. "We're in this together."

"But how will we get him upstairs without someone objecting? They'll know he's not a patron, and they won't want him around if he can't pay, I can tell you that much." She sighed. "Goddess, I can't see any way around this…"

Maddox and Ershey both looked down at Spot, slumbering peacefully, completely oblivious.

"Hey Ersh?" Maddox said, studying Spot's face, "you know a lot about make up, right?"

"Yeah…why?"

"What color lipstick do you think he would look better with—coral pink, or fire engine red?"

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

It was almost terrifyingly easy to find clothes that fit Spot well. "He's got a wonderful bone structure," Ershey murmured as she slipped her best corset over his head, admiring her handiwork. "And wouldn't you just kill to have lips like that?"

Maddox just stifled a giggle and went to work with the concealer.

They learned a lot more than they needed to know about Spot that morning, but perhaps the most important lesson was that he was an incredibly deep sleeper. They had time to dress him, do his make-up, and find a rosy satin tea-dress and slippers for Maddox to wear before he even came to.

As he woke up, he rolled around, noticing the fabric against his skin and sleep mumbling: "I love the feel a' taffeta…"

When he opened his eyes he saw the horrified stares Ershey and Maddox were giving him, and said it backwards to see if it would reverse the effects. "Attefat 'a leef eht evol I—" he stammered. "Uh, Maddie? Why am I dressed like dis?"

"Very long story," Maddox said.

After they did their best to explain the dress situation to Spot (who actually didn't seem to mind it that much) they went up to Coin's apartments at the very top floor of the Dall Mansions. As they walked out of the elevator, they were immediately greeted by chaos—behind the door, someone was screaming, and a moment later something shattered against the wall. The door was flung open and a naked man ran outside and down the stairs, looking like he was fleeing for his life.

"And _stay _out!" the woman behind the door snarled. Ershey covered Maddox's eyes.

The man stopped when she hurled his clothes at him, his shoe hitting him squarely in the jaw. He put his finger inside his mouth, and it came away bloody.

"You chipped my tooth, you fucking bitch!"

"I _like _dis goil," Spot said. Ershey covered Maddox's ears as well.

The girl behind the door threw the other shoe at the man on the stairwell with remarkable force, and he took that as his last invitation to leave without injury. As he sprinted down the stairwell, the door to Coin's apartments was flung open, revealing a girl a shade over five feet tall, with fine, dark hair and the palest skin Maddox had ever seen, a fiery blush spreading across her cheeks. Her jaw was clenched so tightly that her face was tensed all the way up to her forehead; she was clearly no one to be trifled with.

_ Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain_, Maddox thought, doing her best to get Ershey's hands away from her ears, to no avail.

Coin surveyed the motley crew assembled outside her doorway. While she was silent, every breath in the room was held. At last, she looked at Spot, and sighed deeply, her face twitching in a strange approximation of a smile.

"That's a very ugly girl you have there, Ershey." And then a grin broke out on her face; she laughed, and flung her door wide open.

Ershey launched herself into Coin's arms, hugging her so tightly it looked as if she would never let go. "My sister," she said, softly.

> "I thought I would never see you again."
> 
> Ershey laughed. "Well, with your reputation for dealing with unwanted visitors..."

Coin just shook her head, laughing, and turned to survey Maddox and Spot, standing uncomfortably on the landing. "You are a boy, aren't you?" she said to Spot. He nodded. "Good. You're passable as a boy, but as a girl, you're an absolute dog."

> "I'm glad ya think that, Miss."

"Now, come on," Coin said. "All of you. We're having breakfast on the balcony today." She smiled. "Oh, and Ersh?"

"Hmm?"

> "_Coral _lipstick? I think I would have gone with mauve."
> 
> "Oh, but he has _just _the right complexion…"

They sat on the terrace and ate bananas and cream and had fresh milk from pale blue bowls, looking out at the Dall Mansion pavilion spread below, full of cool stone benches, fish ponds and bridges and exotic trees heavy with fruit, where the higher-status girls could wander in their free time and catch up on their gossip. A little sunlight filtered in through the paned glass above, and Spot and Maddox stretched out languid as cats on the tile, for once relaxing a little, and Coin and Ershey talked over breakfast, both making up for lost time.

"I have to say," said Ershey, "you really lucked out here. I mean, the apartment, the pay, the view…"

"Luck!" Coin laughed. "Luck has nothing to do with it. It's just like they say—rely on a fuck, not luck, to get you where you want."

"You're a poet and you don't know it," Spot said. Maddox laughed and Coin just looked puzzled.

"Honestly," Ershey said, "I could make a fortune just writing about the dialect where these two come from."

"And where is that?" Coin asked curiously.

As Ershey's explanation unfolded, Coin stared at Maddox, looking more and more astonished, until, by the end of the story, her eyes were as wide as saucers.

"The worldwalls," she murmured. "Incredible."

Lazily, Maddox rolled over onto her stomach, looking up at Coin. "It's completely credible," she assured her. "Trust me. I should know."

"But nothing like this has ever—"

"So what?" Spot piped up. "It has now."

"_So what_," Ershey mused. "Yet another odd construction. Do you suppose—"

"SHUT UP, ERSHEY!" everyone said at once.

"Well, there's no need to get snippy…"

"So no one's evah done this before?" Spot asked inquisitively. "I mean…gone through?"

"Not…not recently," Coin said.

"Well, whaddaya mean, 'recently'?"

"It's a long story, my ugly."

"Then tell it," he said.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Five hundred and eighteen years. That was how long it had been since anyone had broken through—and up until now, it was the first and the last time that it had happened.

The first crossing of the worldwalls occurred at the same time as the great color war—before that, Möbia was an idyllic place, fertile and rich, where anyone could wear whatever color they wanted, Gliss and Nour got along as sisters and the Dall Mansions were something that no one could have imagined. But all that changed when she came along.

She was the youngest daughter in the royal court at Nour, the best beloved, most beautiful princess in the nation. By now, her story had little truth left to it, but what legends remained told that she had a heart as strong and vengeful as it was capable of love—and when she fell in love with the eldest heir, and he broke her heart, she vowed to settle the score. And she did—in the most destructive act of political sabotage in the history of Möbia.

She understood power, and she understood the crown. All she needed to do was cause a rift between the Northern city and the Southern, and when they were at war, everything would topple. And of course, she managed to do just that. And of course, she succeeded.

After the twelve year war—the war that killed a third of the population, left the entire country between Gliss and Nour as a no-man's-land, and made what was once a thriving nation into a wasteland—the country realized who was at fault. But before she could be put to death, she found a way to navigate the worldwalls and move into an alternate universe, and escape.

There, legend had it, she had been living in exile for the last five hundred and eighteen years, plotting her revenge on the country that had cast her out from her home, waiting for the opportunity to strike. Spot and Maddox's arrival meant that the time had come. Any day now, she would emerge, and wreak havoc in this world. Before, she had weakened Möbia beyond comprehension. Now, she would destroy it. Her name was…

"_Priscilla?_" Maddox sputtered. "The face of ultimate evil is named _Priscilla_?"

"Don't blame me," Coin said, shrugging.

"Actually, I think I will."

"So that goil," Spot murmured, still deep in thought. "That goil at the opium den, who cut me and—and—"

"Priscilla," Coin finished for him.

"Wow. When they said addiction could kill ya, they weren't kiddin'…"

Deep in thought, Maddox was staring intently at Spot. Something about him was so familiar—the shape of his face, his eyes, something. Something made her feel like she'd seen him before. But where?

Suddenly, it came to her. She pulled the newspaper clipping out of her pocket, gingerly unfolded it, and handed it to Spot.

"Hey," he said, as if he had somehow accomplished something. "That's me."

"You don't photograph well, do you?" Ershey remarked.

"Aw, shaddup, it's a bad angle…"

Coin leaned forward, resting her chin in her palm and looking down at Maddox's photograph. "You two are linked," she said, quietly. "Doubtless. Maybe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but you've been brought together, and that's the only way you're going to get out of this, too."

"And how exactly is that?" Maddox asked.

"You have to go to the court at Gliss," Coin said, completely serious now. "You have to make your way across the country, and warn them. You have to be envoys—"

"Ambastards," Spot said, faintly.

"…That works too. We have to have our defenses ready when Priscilla comes back…oh, and she will come back. You two have to help us. Right now, you're our only hope."

"Then call me Obi-Wan Kenobi," Maddox said, a remark which Ershey chose to ignore, probably for the good of her health.

"I thought there was no way out a' the city," Spot said, looking remarkably calm. When you find yourself in a world that you know nothing about, made up in blush and eyeliner and sitting on a balcony in the biggest whorehouse in the world, everything starts to feel like a lucid dream.

"Well, there is," Coin said. "Sort of."

"The underground?" Ershey asked. Coin nodded. "But does anyone even know where that is?"

"I do."

"I wouldn't have put it past you," she sighed.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Ershey led them down from the lobby that night, after they had made arrangements and packed a few things. Maddox walked with head down as they traversed the narrow alleyways and paths that snaked through layers beneath the streets, a dark scarf bound tightly at her skin, hiding her hair and casting her face in shadows. Whether it was from fear or just the darkness she didn't know, but Spot held close to her for the entire journey.

They walked for maybe two miles, all the way going gradually deeper and deeper underground. No one spoke. And when they finally reached the train, it was only through Coin's shout of recognition that they realized they had arrived—it was completely dark, out of order for hundreds of years. The only light was cast by the kerosene lantern that Ershey held with an outstretched arm.

Coin was fiddling with a fuse box when they got there, flipping switches on and on and working at the wires with her deft fingers. Suddenly, something connected, and the entire terminal lit up, the train coming to life once again.

"Neat trick," Ershey said.

Coin handed two parcels to Spot and Maddox. "I've packed you some food and other essentials. No. Don't open them until you're on your way. Ride the rails until you can't go any further, and then go aboveground. If you're lucky, it will take you for half of your journey, or at least as far as Grisette—that's the first major settlement outside Nour. And if you're not, well…"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Spot finished.

Coin smiled and tweaked his ear. "My kind of fellow." Ershey rolled her eyes and made gagging motions.

Maddox was preoccupied, looking at the train in the terminal, a behemoth from another era. It was magnificent.

"It's sort of like _Speed_," she said, and was rewarded by puzzled stares from her companions. "The movie, about the bus…that went really fast…and then they went on the subway…and Keanu Reeves did a What Now? look…" Maddox sighed. "Never mind."

"You an' your movies," Spot muttered.

Coin pulled a lever, and the doors to the train sprung open. "In," she hissed. "While we still have a chance. I can get it moving; from there on it's up to you."

Maddox hugged Ershey tightly, and then Coin, while Spot stood a few feet away and tried without much success and tried to arrange his face into something appropriate for the situation (he ended up looking like he had swallowed a bug, but the sentiment was surely appreciated). And then, both travelers clambered aboard, and the train heaved itself into motion.

Maddox pressed her nose against the window as Coin and Ershey were pulled out of sight—as faster and faster they left behind the terminal, the terrible city of Nour; as her eyes got too weak to see even small figures in the distance, and the train rushed farther away, away from the warmth, away from the light, and farther than she had ever traveled.

[TBC…]

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

**A/N: **If anyone feels the need to pelt me with overripe kumquats as punishment for putting Spot in drag, those will be made available. And, if you want to reward me for it…do the same. I'll go through botanical dodge ball, and then have a nice fruit salad afterwards.

**Shout-outs!**

** Ershey: **Yep! With every chapter completed, I'm that much closer to Newsies Rap! …Which, probably, isn't the absolute best reason to keep going…but whatever works, right? (wink)

MUSH: Even white boys got ta shout…baby got back!

(giggles and falls over)

** Teepot: **Are you going to be paired with Jack? Was there ever any question? (pause) Well…as long as you don't mind banjo music and living in a swamp…(grins) Suffice it to say, darlin', he's all yours.

** Soaker: **Well, considering that annoying Dalton is my one real goal in life...

DALTON: (wails) Why can't you be normal, and worry about college?

If Race can have his sock obsession…then I can worry about my asterisks.

DALTON: (sobs)

(high-fives Soaker) Now, that's five points for making him cry…

** Nada Zimri: **Does your friend sell real estate? Seriously, I'd be interested…(grins) Once again, another money-making scheme from Mattie and Dakki…with this money, we can BUY our asterisks back!

DALTON: Or feed hungry children…save the whales…preserve the rain forest…

(sighs) Obviously, Charlie, your priorities are just not in order…

** Nani: **(grins) TEAL! I knew girl named Teal once…she played Saxophone with me in band…interesting girl, Teal was…

DALTON: Is this going anywhere?

No…not really…(snaps to attention) Anyway! Baby blue _is _a great color, except, of course, when used on tuxedoes. (wink)

**Petra****: **Weeeeell, let's just say the newsies can do many things we never thought they could…within reason. For instance, alternate world-hopping is plausible; roller-blading is not.

DALTON: You know…just because you couldn't do it…

(glares)

** Buttons: **(sighs) Oh, the froggie romances of my past…how I could go on…

DALTON: (stares)

Charlie…have you ever wondered why the handle of your toothbrush is clammy sometimes? Or why your pillows—

DALTON: AUGH!

Heehee.

** Klover: **When you think about it, those same principles can pretty much be applied to everything… (grins) And here we are, folks…conclusive evidence that Molly Ringwald movies really can save humanity!

DALTON: (sighs) Ya think, Dak?

Well, I wasn't gonna leave it up to you… (winks)

** Coin: **(gasps) Of COURSE you're lovely and mysterious! Anyone who wears pink Converse is by default, right?

DALTON: (rolls his eyes)

** Ccatt: **Aw, it goes without saying that you're in it, doesn't it? I mean, someone has to help Racey pick out his socks, right? (whispers) Between you and me…the guy has _horrendous _taste…

** Rubix: **AAH! THE CUTENESS! Must…not…tickle…

Haha! XD Of course you're in this one, darlin'—you didn't need Les to find that out. Although…now that he's here an' all…can I keep 'im?

DALTON: No…more…NEWSIES!

(whines) But Charlie, he followed me home!

** Shooter: **(sighs happily) I love snickerdoodles too…seriously, just SAYING "snickerdoodle" is almost as good as eating one. Snickerdoodle… snickerdoodle… snicker—

DALTON: (smacks upside the head)

(grins) ...Thanks. I needed that…

**Sparks****: **Well…I just turned sixteen…and sound like I'm…seven, at best…so…(grins) consider yourself really, really lucky.

DALTON: And tell the same thing to your preppie-muse.

You know, Charlie…not all muses are preppie.

DALTON: No?

No. Most of them are half-naked newsies, actually. (pause) You're damn lucky I couldn't get a refund…

** Strawberri Shake: **(grins) The thing is, I can't figure out who's more unlucky…Ersh, for selling herself since she was twelve…or Jack, for being named Kermit. (grins) Kind of a toss-up…

** Sapphy: **It appears you're in a bit of a pickle, Ram…

RAM: (stabs himself in the forehead with a pencil) Look! Now I'm bleeding more than Race! (looks up at Sapphy with _Shrek 2 _Puss in Boots eyes)

(grins) Leave it to our Rammykins…

** Uninvisible: **(bows down to the genius) My GOD you are brilliant…and the sad thing is, in about three months, I bet Seventeen is gonna be featuring one pink shoe, one black. Ah, the curse of the trendsetter…(wink)

** Splashey: **(grins) Fetish, fetish, fetish, fetish…I agree, good word. You know what's even more fun to say, though? DOILIE.

DALTON: …Why me?

** BabyXtreme: **Yeah, I love torturing these guys…Disney has given us a beautiful gift…what's next—Spot Gonzo Conlon?

DALTON: Please, whatever you do, don't give her ideas…

(winks)

> .,.,.,.,.,.

** Next Up: **Chapter Six—In Which NyQuil Is Put To Nefarious Purposes, Our Hero And Heroine's Friends Get Pulled Into The Adventure, Even If They Don't Really Understand What's Going On (Kermit, I'm Looking At You)


	6. The Manly Thing to Do

**Author's Note: **Last week I went on a beginning-of-summer road trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, and had a wonderful time.  Dalton, my annoying yet semi-cute repressed preppie muse, was glad to go too because he was tired of living in my closet and never being allowed outside, and also he said it would give me a lot of time to work on fic.  Which it did.  By hand.  In PENCIL.  (sob)

Anyway, this is the first chapter that I've had to write out ENTIRELY before typing up, and yes, it was hard, and scary, and my hand did cramp up, but I lived, although I am typing this with my nose (Dalton agreed to type up the rest of the fic, so the formatting might be slightly off).  I did this mostly while driving through Southern Oregon, listening to the _RENT_ soundtrack and periodically looking out the window and shouting, "LOOK!  COWS!" at the top of my lungs (there are many, many cows in the state of Oregon—you'd never guess how many times my traveling companions tried to ditch me.  Actually, I'll just tell you—seventeen).  But even with all the pencil-related trauma it was one of the most peaceful fic-writing experiences I've ever had, mostly since Dalton was too carsick to comment and spent most of the ride with his head hanging out the window.

DALTON: (glares)

So, in short: road trips—good.  Motion sick muses when there is no Dramamine to be had—bad. (See?  It even rhymes.)

…And now, on with the fic!

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

**Chinese Lantern**

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**Chapter Six—**

**The Manly Thing to Do**

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_"Do, or do not…there is no try."_

_                        --Yoda_

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Caroline Maddox Brown had been blessed at birth with straight teeth, strong bones, and an overactive imagination to rival that of Chuck Barris.  Her one great wish in life was to have an adventure, and when there was no drama to be had, she simply invented it herself—her escapades had had, until then, no villains, leading men, rival archaeologists, dragons, vengeful fairy godmothers, or even coherent storylines, but she still made a serious effort whenever she could, her only policy being that she would never make the same mistake twice (and it was true: she always found some way to make new ones).  When she went missing that night in Chinatown, it was nothing, really, to write home about: her friends had been dealing with her disappearances almost as long as they had known her.

            "Just another one of Maddie's escape attempts," was Max's pronouncement.  "We'll probably be seeing her tomorrow on Broadway."

            "Not if I get there first," Ram murmured.

            It was past midnight, and Ram, Max, and Ginnie were all lying around in the hotel room, having vodka & Nyquil, because there was nothing else to be had, and hard alcohol mixed with cough syrup had a charming effect on the nerves that had even slowed Ram down enough to make him stop jumping up and down on the bed with Ginnie's shoes on his ears, singing "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and doing the can-can.

            "I feel woozy," he remarked, seven seconds later, not sounding unlike Charlie Brown.

            "Be careful, Kemosabe.  This stuff might kill ya."

            Ginnie raised her glass.  "A toast to Maddie, wherever she is right now."

            They all downed their shots, and Ram lay back on the floor, his headphones half-on as he watched the episode of _Law & Order _that was muted on the TV.  Somehow, combined with the _Little Shop of Horrors _soundtrack, it seemed so much better than the original.  Currently, Briscoe and Logan were in the interrogation room, singing "Suddenly Seymour".

            Logan grabbed the perp forcefully by the arm, his eyebrows furrowed angrily.  "Suddenly Seymour is standing besi-ide you…" he crooned.  "You don't need no makeup—don't have to preteeeend..."  He slammed him up against the wall, grabbing him by the neck.  "Suddenly Seymour is here to provide you, with sweet understa-a-anding…Seymour's your friend…"

            Briscoe stepped in, pulling Mike's arm away, spitting nails as he spoke with an oddly high voice.  "Nobody ever treated me kindly…Daddy left early, and Mama was poor.  I meet a man and I follow him blindly…he'd snap his fingers, and I would say, 'sure'."

            "Guys," Ram said suddenly, pulling his headphones off, "I think something's wrong with Maddox."

            To which Max rebutted, rather rudely, that nothing had ever gone wrong the eight thousand times this had happened before.

            But he just had a _feeling_, Ram explained.  At which point Max said that the last time Ram had had a _feeling_, they had tried making frozen pizza in the toaster, and the grease had fried the wires, and the entire kitchen had shorted out, and it had cost them two thousand dollars to rewire the house and they had had to wash dishes in the bathtub for six months.

            "But it's in the best friend's rights," Ram said, raising his eyebrows in a quizzical, McCoyish manner.  And no one could argue with that.

            After a while, they came up with a compromise: they would wait until morning, and if Maddox hadn't gotten back by then, they would go out looking for her.  And then, after coming to this conclusion, they all did the noblest thing possible: keeled over, and fell fast asleep.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

Back in 1900 New York, Jack had slightly less trouble rounding up a search team, possibly because sedative-laced cough syrup had not yet been made widely available to the general public.  Although, in truth, Jack didn't need a whole lot of help figuring out what kind of business Spot had been into—they had been close, once, a long time ago, and he knew which people to ask, and where to go.  It was only after a few spare hours of detective work that he traced it to a certain address in Chinatown, and a reasonable doubt as to why Spot had been spending so much time there as of late.  In truth, it was something that he had been suspecting for a long time.

            He set out bright and early on a Sunday morning, the address in his pocket, looking to see what he could unearth.  Racetrack was the first person to catch on—he saw Jack watching steadfastly away from the lodging house one day, face bowed down against the wind, and immediately spotted his opportunity.

            "Heya, Cowboy," he said, chipper as a chipmunk as he bounded up and slung an arm around his shoulders.

            "Oh, um…hi, Race.  Why aren't ya sellin' today?"

            Racetrack's eyes opened so wide that Jack knew he had to be faking it.  "Jack.  It's _Sunday_."

            "So?  Why can't ya sell on Sunday?"

            He clutched at his heart, aghast.  "Because of God!"

            Jack rolled his eyes.  "Race, when was the last time you were actually in church, without bein' forced to go?"

            He looked up at the sky, as if pondering an imaginary number.  "Approximately…nevah.  But you were raised Catholic, right Jack?"

            Jack nodded, not quite sure what race was getting at, but still certain that he was about to have the rug pulled out from under his feet.

            "So, you sellin' today…wouldn't that be a sin?"

            "I'm not," Jack muttered.

            "Oh?  What are ya doin' then?"

            "I'm…goin' ta look for Spot in Chinatown," Jack said, sort of.  To Racetrack, however, it sounded more like "I'm mumble humble mumble Spot mumble mumble."

            "What was that?"

            "I'm lookin' for mumble mumble Chinatown mumble…(cough)."

            "WHAT?"

            "I SAID I'M LOOKIN' FOR SPOT IN CHINATOWN TODAY!" Jack shouted at the top of his lungs, only to instantly regret it.

            Gathered in the sidewalk in front of him, called instantly to attention, was every newsie from the Duane Street lodging house: Dutchy, Crutchy, Swifty, Specs, Snitch, Skittery, Blink, Mush, Snipeshooter…everyone.  Even the kids.  Even David was there—that he would have almost liked, maybe, if it was _just_ David—but everyone else was there, and Les too.  And Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny, probably, too.  Jack covered his face with his hands.  This was getting to be a little too much.

            "So," he said, addressing the crowd.  "As of mumble mumble, Spot's humble mumble mumble mumble, an' we're mumble mumble humble mumble Chinatown."

            "What he means to say," Racetrack spoke up, "is that Spot's been in some shifty business in opium dens lately, an' we're goin' ta look for him in Chinatown."

            Jack looked at him with one eye.  "You could hear me dat whole time?"

            Racetrack grinned.  "Of coise."

            Some general murmuring went up through the crowd at this pronouncement.  Les tugged at his brother's sleeve.  "Davey, what's opium?"

            "…I'll tell you when you're older."

            "Oh."  Les closed his eyes for a few seconds, and then pulled on David's arm again.  "Davey!  I'm older now."

            "OKAY!" Racetrack yelled.  "Everybody walk dis way.  Whoever comes along, gets free noodles."  Needless to say, that put them all in motion pretty quickly.

            Jack laughed, looking at Racetrack.  "Where are you gonna get that kinda money, Race?"

            Racetrack paused.  "…Did I say 'noodles'?  I meant 'noodle'."

            "Well," Jack grinned.  "It's probably illegal on Sundays anyhow…'cause of God, right?"

            "Kermit, ya read my mind."

            .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

            Ram woke up the next morning at dawn, sprawled on the floor and fiercely hung over, roused by the sound of McCoy's "DID YOU IN FACT?" on TV.  He shook Max and Ginnie awake, roughly bringing them into the waking world.  "C'mon.  We've got a life to save."

            "Mmph…that can wait…" Max muttered, burrowing deeper into his pillow.

            "Max, get up right now, or I'll sing 'Over the Moon'.  And you'll be my cowbell."

            Harsh but fair was Ginnie's verdict.  At any rate, it got him up pretty quickly.

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            No one seemed to be at the opium den when Jack and the rest of the newsies got there.  They passed by an open door where a dark-haired woman sat, poring over an old text with a black cat curled around her, but they paid her no notice, just crept upstairs as inconspicuously as a herd of elephants.  Hearing them go by, the woman looked up, and smiled the faintest of smiles.

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Ram retraced their steps, and brought them all back to the store in Chinatown where they had been the night before—it was barely dawn, and no one from their group was even awake yet.  The place was empty, still locked up for the night; they slipped in through a basement window, one by one, and made their way up the stairs.

            On both sides, what had once been the tiniest bit of wearing-through, a loose thread, was now a gaping fissure—hanging suspended by nothing, and blowing in the slightest breeze like cobwebs: loose, glistering threads of gold, stained, just a little, by blood.

            Sitting downstairs as she read, Priscilla didn't see a thing when the newsboys disappeared.  But she didn't need to: she could feel it.  Five floors up fire spread within them and brought them to another place, and the fire spread within her too—the pathway had opened.  She was free to cross over; what she had waited on for so long was finally, finally here.

            _The time has come._

[TBC…]

            .,.,.,.,.,.,.,

            **Shout-Outs!**

**            Ershey: ** See, I'm in this dilemma here…I could go with the intelligence thing…or rapping newsies.  Be smart…rapping newsies…be smart…rapping newsies…(bits her lip)****

By Jove, I've got it!  Newsies, who sing "School House Rock"!

            KID BLINK: I'm jus' a bill…yes, I'm only a bill, sittin' heah on capital hill…

            (evil grin)

**            Sapphy: **Heehee.  (draws a mustache on Spot's face)  …'Cause God knows, he'd have some trouble growing one himself.  Now…black sharpie, or hot pink?  …This could take hours…

**            Soaker: **Okay, okay, ten points.  But only if he uses the pale-pink Kleenex. (grins)

            And yes, Spot MUST learn to accentuate those lovely baby blues…er…grays…oh…whatever.  Glitter, anyone?

**            Buttons: **(swings down on her vine, Tarzan-style, to rescue Buttons from the horror that is school) I'LL SAVE YOU!

            DALTON: WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!

            (smashes into a tree) Sheesh…guy can't even keep his movies straight, and he thinks I have problems?  Shyah!

**            Nani: **Spot _would_ make a pretty girl, what with all that luxurious sandy hair…in the shower…in an Herbal Essences commercial…_lathering_…

            DALTON: Is it good for the keyboard, to drool on it like that?

**            Shooter: **Spotta!  (grins) Oh, you are a genius…even better than Spottine, or…hold the phone.  SPOTTERELLA!

            SPOT: (stares)

            Just…read this…

            SPOT: (picks up a piece of paper) Oh!  Will da liddle boidies help me ta get dressed in time foah da ball…or shall I nevah meet my Prince Charmin'?

            Meep.

**            Coin: **(grins) Well, god knows I spend a good amount of time throwing shoes at naked guys…(muses) banana cream pies are good too.  Actually, I read the other day that professional throwing-shoes at-naked-guys is one of the hottest sports out there today…wanna chip in on a franchise?

**            Klover: **AWESOME new pen name, If I might say…although it still brings back memories of _Titanic_…

            DALTON: Not that you…cried at that, or anything.

            OF COURSE NOT!  (honk)

**            Ccatt: **Hm, I'm still kinda wavering between Naked!Spot and Spot dressed in full Frank-n-Furter regalia…

            SPOT: (sings) I'm not much of a man by da light of the day…but by night, I'm one hell of a lovah…

            Meep.

**            Splashey: **"You like pain?  …Try wearing a corset!"

            DALTON:L Can you go for, maybe, an entire day, without quoting from _Pirates of the Caribbean_?

            …Would you pay me to?

**            Strawberri Shake: **AAH!  Snoggage! (pelts Strawberri Shake with overripe mangoes)

            DALTON: …Who are you, Pauly shore?

            (grins)

**            m-e lee12: **Nifty!  Love that word.  In fact, anything ending in 'ifty…Nifty, mifty, lifty, tifty…

            DALTON: 'Tifty'—this is a word?

            (shrugs)

**            Uninvisible: **See, the bad thing for me, about the Olsen twins, is that they've forced me to lose all respect for Eugene Levy, after he was in a movie with them.  And this is bad, because he was going to be my adopted father…so now I have to move in with, I don't know, Patrick Swayze?  (shudders) Now that would be pretty grim…

            DALTON: (clings)

**            Sparks: **Probably the sad thing is that Spot can play dress-up better than I can…I dunno tall girls can't pull off those flippy miniskirts…and you know, you can only watch _Newsies _so many times before you start to picture him in a tutu…

            DALTON: (stares)

            …Or maybe that's just me…(grins)

**            Silver Petra: **RollerSkating!Spot!  Ah, you are my hero.  Now, if we can put him in hop pants and have him dancing to "Superfreak"…then I think we might be onto something…(grins)

**            NadaZimri: **I've got this whole thing figured out…we sell each house complete with newsie…that way, both of us can start an organization to pay fanfic writers like us, and I can feed my bacon/cough syrup addiction.  The pbasic Ponzi scheme never looked better…(grins)

**            Moonlights Sundance: **Heehee.  Come on, is there anyone out there who _doesn't _want Alec Guinness to be their adoptive father?

            (everyone raises their hands)

            (sigh)

            .,.,.,.,.

            **Next Up: **Chapter Seven, In Which Alliances Are Made, More Original Characters Are Introduced Along With The Definitive Explanation On Why Oatmeal Is Bad, Including References To The Work Of Noam Chomsky (Some Of Which May Be Fabricated, But Oh Well, You Get What You Pay For, And Living In America In End Of The Millennium, You're What You Own…Now Somebody Stop Me, Please, Before I Start Singing)


	7. Songs to Aging Children

Charlie, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

DALTON: …I think so, Dakki, but can the Gummi Worms really live in peace with the Marshmallow Chicks?

(grins) Been trying to teach him that all week…

However! Even more important (and completely un-"Pinky and the Brain"-related) news is to be had…Dalton?

DALTON: We broke100 reviews!

(cheers) WE BEAT 'EM!

(pause)

DALTON: Um…beat who?

(cheerfully) Oh, who knows. The point is, we're this much closer to world domination…and tomorrow night, Charlie, we'll come up with another plan—one that _won't _be foiled by our inability to access David Moscow's underwear.

DALTON: Narf.

(grins)…Narf indeed.

And now, on with the fic!

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**Chinese Lantern**

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**Chapter Seven—**

**Songs to Aging Children**

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_"Say after me—_

_It's no better to be safe than sorry…"_

—A-Ha, "Take On Me"

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They rode, they rode, they rode. Underground there were few ways to measure distance, much less time—what felt like months could be an hour, and what felt like an hour could be months—but as they hurtled ever forward, for a night and a day, they knew it had been too long since they had seen the sun.

The train was beautiful, abandoned, faster than anything—it ran with the quiet speed of steel on steel, and never stopped. From what Ershey had told her about it, Maddox had imagined that it would be like a subway car, all sparseness and fluorescence, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The Nouri Nightly Express, as it had been known in better days, was a long-abandoned luxury train, untouched for centuries, as elegant and doomed as the Titanic.

The dining car was where they made their home. Spot unearthed an old book of matches, and lit a few candles, casting light on the snowy table linens and crystal champagne flutes, the lush red carpets and hardwood panels. Like the gentleman's clubs back home, where all the rich fellas went on Saturday nights, for brandy and cigars, and dinner with their friends…

"Any food?" he called to Maddox, who was in the other room, ransacking the kitchen cupboards.

"Nothing much. Gin, celery tonic, seltzer water, oil of cloves, soda crackers…"

"Soda crackers might be good," he said hopefully.

"Yeah…trust me. No." She poked her head out into the corridor and glanced at Spot, sitting at one of the dining table and looking as if he was about to pass out from hunger. "Look in the parcel Coin packed for us," she suggested.

Coin! Spot thought. May God and all the holy high penguins of heaven bless her for all eternity. Picking the parcel up from the floor, he undid the knots and took a look at their supplies. Along with a loaf of bread, two halfpenny bars of chocolate, some cheese, water, and barley sugar, there was a small sack of gold coins, a few books, straight pens and paper, and finally, two toothbrushes, in a pleasant shade of Molly Rinwald Pink.

"She thought of everything," Maddox murmured, as she took a seat across the table from Spot, toying with the rim of a wineglass.

"No toothpaste," he pointed out.

"Well, nobody's perfect…"

They had a stately dinner, eating their bread and cheese and chocolate on place settings designed for nine- or ten-course meals, complete with six different cut-crystal glasses, china plates, and thirteen different pieces of silverware, all the way down to a tiny, mother-of-pearl-handled oyster fork. Sitting there as they shared a meal, passing back and forth a bottle of red ale that they had managed to unearth, they could still hear the echoes of people from another era in the dark city—businessmen conferring with each other over Turkish coffee; society matrons in elbow-gloves and tiered hats holding their silverware like surgeon's tools as they dispatched of their Sunday-night dinners, from cream soup to red wine, living less as people than as symbols of the opulence that surrounded them. It was as if, now, those spirits were still unable to rest.

Perhaps indigestion was at fault.

Still, the place gave Maddox the willies, and although Spot wasn't about to admit it, he felt the same way. So after dinner they found their way into one of the lounges, a small, rosy parlor not unlike Ershey's apartments back at the Dall Mansions, complete with a fireplace, heavy mahogany furniture, and curtained windows on either side (this last, especially, heartened Maddox—it meant that, soon, they would be seeing light).

It must have been well past midnight by that time, or sometime in the small hours of the morning. But for some reason, Maddox wasn't tired. So while Spot curled up on one of the divans, and fell into a restless sleep, with periodic sleep mumblings ("WET TOAST!"), Maddox sat down in a chair by the window, leaned her head against the glass, cracked open one of the books Coin had packed, and began to bone up on her Möbian history.

.,.,.,.,.,.,

"I just want to apologize to Josh's mom…and Mike's mom…and my mom. I am so sorry—because it was my fault. _I_ was the one who brought them here. _I_ was the one that said 'keep going south.' I was the one who said that we were not lost. It was my fault, because it was my project. _I am so scared. _ I don't know what's out there. We are—"

"…Maddie?"

"AAYIERGH!"

Spot approached her tentatively, not wanting to take any chances after seeing she was capable of jumping three feet in the air. "You okay?"

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that!" cried Maddox, who had been busy practicing her tearful _Blair Witch Project _confessionand had just gotten herself sobbing by thinking about how Jell-O didn't make pineapple flavored gelatin, and probably never would.

Spot, who had just woken up, and was wondering if Maddox still had that canteen of water that Coin had packed for them (and why she was crying about some guy named Josh), sighed and sat down in the chair beside her, deciding that it was probably best not to ask any questions.

"Spot?" she asked quietly, pushing her dark hair out of her eyes.

"Hmm?"

"What are your feelings on Jell-O?"

"What?"

"You know, the wobbly stuff?"

He paused a moment to contemplate this. "…That what you're callin' tits, where you come from?"

"Um." She looked down. "No…it's sweet, and it comes in different flavors. Gelatin."

"Oh! That." He smiled. "Yeah, I used ta like it when I was a kid…always annoyed me how ya couldn't get pineapple, though."

Smiling faintly, Maddox bit her lip and turned once again towards the window, only to startle Spot out of his wits once again, this time by reaching out and blindly grabbing his shoulder with an urgency that suggested death, money, or a vast amount of alcohol. "Look," she whispered. "Daylight."

And she was right. At last, at last—they had come out from underground and into the world once again. They were deep, deep in a valley, an overcast sky above them and rain coming down as steady and slow as heartache. They could see old ruins of estates and humble lean-to farmhouses in the distance, rickety chimneys releasing a curled calligraphy of smoke and cinders, coloring the sky a darker shade of gray. For that seemed to be the only color—the sky, the frozen river where bundled workmen cut blocks of ice, even the trees stretching high above them and the rugged, dark cliff-faces even higher—nothing bright, nothing sharp or cool or vivid. Not even the false beauty of the Dall mansions. Even looking out the window made Spot hunger for color—and he hoped, more than anything, that they could just barrel past all of this, to someplace further on, someplace where they could at least see the sun.

And just then, as if he had wished for it, the train stopped dead in its tracks.

"Beautiful."

"Well," Maddox said, sounding just a little too cheerful as she stood up and began to straighten out, "personally, I've been wanting to stretch my legs."

Of course, Spot just glared at her. And, of course, she took that as a 'yes'.

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Edda Solasc was having an altogether normal day. He got up in the dark, dressed, built the fire while the house was still asleep, went out to the barnyard and brought in the morning's milk and eggs, broken his fast with jam and stale bread left over from last week's baking day with his wife, children, cousin and mother-in-law crowded around the table, and headed out for work, just as he did almost every morning. He wasn't sure what time it was—no one really kept time, in the town of Grisette—but the sun had begun to move more or less towards the horizon, rather than away from it, and the persistent rain that had been following him all morning had begun to fall a little heavier when he first heard the sound of someone tramping through the undergrowth, and voices raised.

"NINE GREEN BOTTLES! HANGIN' ON THE WALL! NINE GREEN BOTTLES! HANGIN' ON THE WALL! AN' IF ONE GREEN BOTTLE SHOULD ACCIDENTLY FALL—sin' it with me, Maddie!—THERE'LL BE EIGHT GREEN BOTTLES, HANGIN' ON THE WALL!" Whoever it was paused for breath. "EIGHT GREEN BOTTLES, HANGIN' ON—"

"You're a happy drunk, aren't you Spot?" a second, slightly calmer voice said.

"_I_," the second voice said, "am _not _drunk."

"I dunno, Spotty, you seem to have put a pretty good dent in that flask of whiskey Coin packed for us."

"Spotty? Did you just cawl me _Spotty_?"

The second voice laughed. "Come on, ease off. I wouldn't be picking a fight with someone who's taller than I am—"

"Oh, not by _much—_"

…Stiiiiiiillllll taaaaaaaalllllleeeeeerrrrr…"

"EIGHT GREEN BOTTLES! HANGIN' ON THE WALL! EIGHT GREEN—"

Suddenly, the voice dropped off as the two travelers crashed through into the open, and came face to face with Edda, and he found himself looking at the most bizarre pair he had seen sine the blue-skin gypsies passed through a few months back. The first was a young man, short and slight of stature, obviously drunk, with a bird's-nest of sandy hair and a pair of faded red suspenders hanging loose about his waist. The second was a girl, and did, in fact, seem to be taller that her traveling companion, by a good two or three inches at least—she had a certain determined look, with bony shoulders and loose dark hair and the deep gray eyes of a Selkie, and would have been almost pretty if it weren't for the fact that she looked uncannily like a badger.

The girl executed a strange sort of curtsey and smiled at Edda, taking in his grimy, thick hands and rough gray garments. "Hello, good sir!" she called. "We are travelers from a strange and distant land, from the great walled city of Nour, by way of New York City—"

"BROOKLYYYYYYYYYYYNN!"

"—Shut up, Spot—and we ask for help and hospitality from you and your town. Praytell, where have we arrived, as we navigate this strange and beautiful land with forests of a thousand days and nights—what has brought us to your doorstep, kind gentleman? We have walked for many miles, caught by burrs and brambles, with little food or water and soaked by the harsh rains of your country. Will you be kind enough to offer us dry lodging and an explanation as to our circumstance, and extend to us the kindness that we would only be so happy to extend to you, if you descended on our mythic home of the Island of Manhattan?"

These were more words than Edda generally heard in a month, and for a time he simply stood there, leaning against his pitchfork and taking it all in, until Maddox began to wonder whether he was mute. Finally, though, and very slowly, he began to speak.

"Well," he said. "Well. We don't get too many visitors, but there's always room at our table and a warm bed to be had. Come home with me; the wife will take care of you, for certain."

Maddox, smiling, was about to begin another speech, but Spot clamped a hand over her mouth just in time. "Dat would be wonderful," he said. Edda made a gesture that meant something like, "come along then"—and so they followed, the rain their only conversation.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Tuesday was baking day the Solasc house. Wednesday was laundry day, and Friday was when they cleaned, but Tuesday was baking day, and that was Lute's least favorite day of all.

The town of Grisette didn't get an awful lot of light in the winter—the sun only rose fully at about eleven, and it was completely dark again by four—and usually Lute didn't want to waste that time in the kitchen. The whole house on Tuesdays was stuffy and closed-up, with Lavendria, her older cousin, and the woman of the house, in charge of making sausage rolls and supervising her seven children as they rolled dough and measured milk and eggs--even Saturday, the youngest at two, was put to work, crushing nuts for cake with a wooden block.

And Lute, the square peg of the household, was at work kneading bread, situated in front of the only window in the kitchen so she could at least have a view of outside. Actually, she was less kneading the bread than beating the very life out of it: pausing to push back a strand of brown hair that had slipped loose from the kerchief bound about her forehead, she pounded the dough down—_whump_—and with strong hands brought it towards her once again, away from her, towards her, on and on, forever and ever…

Seeing the homicidal tendencies in her young cousin, Lavendria stepped forward and laid a cool, floury hand on her shoulder. "Lute," she said quietly. "We are wanting to bring the bread to life, not kill it. Do you need any help?"

"No, Lavvy. I'm fine."

"Is something bothering you?"

"…Nothing important."

"All right. Back to work, then." Lavendria patted her in an absent sort of way, and went back to stoking the fire.

Lute sighed, and wiped at her forehead, leaving behind a streak of flour. Then, she went back to kneading the dough, never taking her eyes off the window.

She had been doing this, every Tuesday, since she was old enough to stand, and she would probably be doing it every Tuesday for the rest of her life. Everyone knew that the wife brought the tradition into the family; Lute had been living with Lavendria and her husband Edda Solasc, a large, quiet, kind, slow man who reminded Lute a little of a heifer, since her parents had died when she was three, leaving her orphaned.

And soon she would get married too, probably to a farmer, and bake bread on Tuesdays, and have seven children just like Lavendria, who had avoided complications even further by naming them Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. This left only one name scheme that Lute could think of, which was naming each child after a month of the year. She thought she would rather die than give birth to twelve children. Actually, it would probably kill her anyway.

"Why so down?" Lavendria asked, as Lute shoved the dough into a bowl to rise, acting with a vengeance that suggested she had been sleeping with it on the pillow next to her for the last six months, only to find out today that it had been unfaithful to her with a jar of peach preserves.

"I'm just a little frustrated," she said, never one for extended communication.

Lavendria cast a dubious eye on the dough. "It always saddens me," she said, "to see the winter sun disappear and cast darkness on the world. Is that what's bothering you?"

"It's the darkness cast on my heart," Lute sighed melodramatically, and then smacked herself on the forehead. "I can't believe I just _said _that…"

"It's going to be all right," Lavendria said, vaguely.

"I just need to get out of this place," Lute muttered.

"Well!" Lavendria said. "In that case, why don't you go to market this Saturday? You know Edda's been fixing to buy a pig—you could do it! It would be an adventure!" Lute just stared at her. "You never know who you could meet, buying a pig," Lavendria added, unconvincingly.

Lute was, she decided, going to have to get out of Grisette, before she started carrying a fan around and trying to stab herself with every available implement. It was simply the only way to save her dignity.

It was dark outside and the farmhouse was filled with the smell of baking bread before her escape presented itself. Just as Lavendria was setting the table for dinner, and propping up her mother, The Ancient Onia, who had not moved independently in eight years (and might actually have been dead), Edda came in through the front door, tugging off his thick workman's boots and shaking the rainwater from his hair.

"Lavvy," he called, "we've got visitors."

"No!" Lavendria said.

"Yes indeed."

From her post over by the sink, Lute attempted to take a surreptitious peek at the visitors. They were a boy and a girl, both around her age—the boy was soaked to the bone and looked uncannily like a wet cat, and the girl, tall, shivering, was wearing…wait. A pink dress?

"What are we having for dinner?" Edda asked.

"Millet."

The boy rubbed his stomach, looking at the girl. "Mmm, millet."

"Shut up, Spot."

Edda's voice boomed across the tiny kitchen. "Well! Today is a special occasion, my Lavvy. Fetch those rabbits I hunted last fall."

"Oh, but Edda, those we were saving for a rainy day…"

"It is raining," the boy observed.

Edda put a hand on his shoulder. "This is Spot, and Maddox. Ambassadors from Nour. Isn't that something?"

Straightening up, Lavendria didn't look terribly impressed. "Well," she said. "Spot, Maddox, whoever you are, take a seat. I suppose...we'll be eating rabbit."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Lute didn't sleep at all that night. As she lay on her cot in the hall, she could hear Spot and Maddox talking for most of the night, wrapped up in work sheepskins before the kitchen fire, embers glowing faintly in the dark. All through dinner, the talk had been of their journey—how they were setting out for Gliss, with a message in hand that could save all of Möbia. They were pretty non-specific about how they had ended up in Nour in the first place (despite all their efforts to conceal it, they obviously weren't natives), but if anyone else had notices, they hadn't voiced the opinion. Edda was fascinated with their journey, telling them everything he knew and giving them food, clothes, and after dinner showing them to the steeds he would let them take on their trek up the length of the Serrel River. Lavendria, however reticent, had been interested too, and all the children as well, it went without saying. Even The Ancient Onia had been excited enough to make a gurgling sort of noise.

And as Lute lay awake that night, she devoted herself to considering her fate. If ever an opportunity to get away from this town had presented itself to her, than this was it. And if she wanted to escape this life—her cousin's life, her mother's life, and her life someday not so far away—then she had to seize the opportunity while she still could.

At precisely three fifty-four that morning, Lute made her decision: she was going to go with them. Whether they liked it or not.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

To hear Spot Conlon talk about it, you would think that getting up early took some kind of special skill. He explained it all to Maddox the night before—how, seeing as he was a newsie (and the leader of the Brooklyn newsies no less), a very elite profession if ever there was one, he was trained in the art of getting up early, did it almost every day. And since they would be leaving long, long before dawn the next day, to get a good start on their trip, he would handle well, but Maddox, not being used to it, well, Maddox might…

He had completely prepared her for how much she might be shamed the next morning; it was almost funny how he seemed to have a lot more trouble getting up than she did.

"Not really a morning person?" she yawned, as they headed out the front door.

"I blame you for dis," he muttered. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't've met up with Ersh, I would have to deal with this whole Priscilla thing…"

"…You would have been torn to pieces," Maddox said, very slowly, because she wasn't much of a morning person either, "by a bunch of raging courtesans…"

"Well, better that than be here with these STUPID, SHAGGY MOUNTAIN PONIES—"

"Actually, they're small horses."

Spot and Maddox whirled around, startled, to see Lute standing illuminated in the doorway, lost in a herringbone greatcoat, a bag clutched at her side.

"Who invited her to the party?" Spot muttered.

"There's a party?" Maddox asked, groggily. "Where?"

"I want to come with you."

"Where's the party?"

"Shut up, Maddie."

"Okay."

"Look…" Spot scratched his head. "Um…Lurt, is it?"

"Lute."

"Right. Lute…I don' think this is the best idea. This trip we're goin' on, it's pretty dangerous. We might not survive. An' time is of the essence here, so…no offense, but we really can't afford ta have you followin' us around…"

Lute drew herself up to her full, rather unimpressive, height, pride filling in for whatever she lacked in cartilage and bone. "I know this place like the back of my hand," she said. "I can get by on no food and barely any sleep, I know all the plants and animals, and every path and danger and tree-stump from here to the Serrel. I can help you. I can guide you. Please, let me come."

"Oh," Maddox said, pleasantly, "does Lute want to come to the party?"

"Yes," Lute said, before Spot could even open his mouth. "Yes, Maddox, I would."

"Okay, come on then. But I get the really _pretty _pony."

"It's a deal."

And while Spot berated a still barely-awake Maddox, Lute dashed inside one last time, picked up a scrap of paper, and scrawled out a message of goodbye to everything that she had known before:

_Dear Lavvy—_

_ I've gone to buy a pig._

_ Your adoring cousin,_

_ LUTE._

_ P.S. You might want to find someone else to make bread on Tuesdays. I might not be back in time for the next baking-day._

> [TBC…]

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

A/N: I baked a few loaves of bread today, so the whole baking thing was pretty much drawn from life. Man, that dough needed to be pummeled…

Never trust a whole wheat. It's _always_ up to something behind your back.

Narf! Onto--

**Shout-outs!**

** Lute: **Well, us vampires have to update sometime…

DALTON: You're not a vampire.

Well, us vampire bats have to update sometime…

DALTON: You're not a vampire bat.

WELL, US SLACKERS HAVE TO UPDATE SOMETIME.

DALTON: (pause) …Okay.

** Soaker: **You know, I can kind of see Davey in sheer lip gloss, and glitter? Oh, and aquamarine eye shadow, of course. Gotta bring out those baby blues. XD

** Strawberri Shake: **Well, you know what they say…when the going get tough, the tough get really, really drunk. Or at least that's what my dad always told me…

** Moonlights Sundance: **YAY! Cookie! (munches) (pause) Charlie…where am I?

DALTON: (shakes his head) Cookie amnesia ruins another innocent life…

** Coin: **NEVER BEEN TO OREGON? Okay, that's it Coinerella, I'm flyin' you in. And in order to get the plane, I'll have an affair with Christian Bale, who will GIVE me a plane through his love for me. And in order to have an affair with Christian Bale, I'll figure out a plan with you, after I fly you in, with…

DRAT!

** Teepot: **I find that a poster of Christian Bale, sans shirt, strategically placed in the workspace, can do wonders for fic-writing productivity.

DALTON: …is that why you have all those scented candles and an invitation to your future wedding, stapled to the wall?

…Um…yes.

(sighs) Football head…

** Klover: **Dude, I remember when I was eight, I refused to see _The Hunchback of Notre Dame _because I heard it butchered the ending…see? Even then I had principles…

DALTON: And yet, now, you're happy to accept that turn-of-the-century newsboys were pelvic thrusting all over the place?

…What are you saying, Charlie? That they weren't?

** Ccatt: **I figure each ellipse I get it a vote of confidence…therefore, you're my number one supporter. XD

** Sapphy: **Let's just form a new religion—Les is the God of Wisdom, and Ellen Greene is the Goddess of…Niftiness…or something. And, of course, the only commandment is "be excellent to each other."

DALTON: …I don't get it.

You never do…

** Shooter: **Hmm…can you see yourself as fairy godmother, or evil stepsister? XD

** m-e lee12: **Ahh, my beloved internet-cheerleader. (grins)

DALTON: Is that…possible?

Do you WANT me to buy you pom-poms?

DALTON: Eek.

** Uninvisible: **Indiana Jones, as an adopted dad? That would be…FAR too cool for words. I love those movies way more than anyone should, and still be healthy…I think I've seen "Raiders of the Lost Ark" alone fifteen times. And plus, whenever you need him, you can shout, "INDYYYYYY!"

Think he'd adopt the both of us? (crosses fingers)

** Splashey: **In order to repent for your grievous sin, you must remove the pagan idols printed on green paper in your parents' rooms, and send them to Charlie Dalton, P.O Box 48.

** Buttons: **Well, I'll save you then. Now…vine, or should I just burn down the place?

** Ershey: **My darling Ersheykins, NEVER underestimate the power of the noodle. If confederate soldiers had had them on their side during the Civil war, well…I think you can guess who would have won. XD

** Sparks: **DALTON: REVIEWING ON THE JOB! REVIEWING ON—

(clamps a hand over his mouth)

DALTON: Mmph.

Yeah, yeah, talk to the hand…

DALTON: …I am.

(grins)****

** Lela: **(gasp) You read ALL of it? Like, at once? …And it didn't kill you?

DALTON: You know, Dak…

WHAT? Some of us are slow readers, okay?

** NadaZimri: **Don't forget the free newsie in every closet…right next to the wedding dress. XD

> .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.
> 
> **Next Up: **Chapter Eight, In Which Our Boys Encounter Yet More Trouble With Authority Figures, More Alliances Are Made, And An In-Depth Look Is Taken At Newsie Underwear, Even Though I Am Sure All Of You Are Upstanding Citizens Who Would Never Be Interested In A Thing Like That.


	8. A Thoroughly Musical Situation

**Author's Note**: …Once again, I'm struck dumb—

DALTON: Oh, we can only wish…

Well, almost speechless, by your overall fantasticness...because I never could have made it through my obligatory writer's block without so many suggestions and characters and emails and thinly veiled death threats, and everything else you've sent my way.  "Ren & Stimpy" reruns also helped too, but…well, I just don't know who to thank for that one.

Nuwanda thinks I should have a point here.  And the point is, feedback like this lets you take a step back from what you've been working on…and then another step back, and a step forward, and a step back again…and now we're tangoing!

Isn't cough syrup the greatest, by the way?  Relieves headache, stuffiness, congestion, with delicious cherry flavor and a new non-drowsy formula!  I feel bright-tailed and bushy-eyed…I could ride a horse!  I could EAT a horse!  I could—_Zzzzzzzzzzz…_

DALTON: This chapter was brought to you by the letter Q and the number 17,486.  And now, on with the fic!

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

**Chinese Lantern**

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

**Chapter Eight—**

**A Thoroughly Musical Situation**

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_"Only thing to do is jump over the moon."_

                                                 —RENT

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Ginnie Skarbonkiewicz, Maddox's only female friend, Ram's reliable backup singer, and Max's eternal admirer, had always been very, very good at looking pretty, and not too talented at anything else.  She was the kind of pleasant, open-faced beauty who had been hit on by the tree man when she was eleven years old; her looks had taken her this far in life, and would probably take her a lot farther.  (It goes without saying that her parents had been seriously considering sending her to a nunnery since she turned fourteen.) 

            If she had wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer or an aluminum siding salesperson, she would have gone through a lifetime of agony and frustration—but, as things stood, she was more accepting of herself than many people who were a lot smarter than her.  And if she wasn't exactly the brightest porch light on the block, then at least she was kind and funny and deeply faithful in the things that deserved her loyalty—Max, John Belushi, lemon drops, all animals including bats, George Gershwin, and her firm and deeply-rooted belief that, no matter what the situation, one should always expect that the absolute worst is true.

            Which was really the only thing to do when Ram shook her awake after God only knew how long, and she found herself in an unfamiliar room with about twenty-five even more unfamiliar teenage boys.  Of course, things only seemed to worsen when Ram surreptitiously turned one of the sleeping teenagers over, and appeared to be taking a look at his underwear.

            "What in the name of Alec Baldwin are you doing?"

            Ram sighed.  "Trying to figure out who we're dealing with, what do you think?"

            "By looking at his…"

            "What?" he said defensively.  "Doesn't your mom write your name in your underwear?"

            "Um.  No?"  She paused.  "Does yours?"

            "Never mind," he muttered, turning whoever it was over.  "Okay, ANTHONY HIGGINS, rise n' shine."

            "Mmph…I'm up, I'm up."  The boy leaned back on his elbows, surveying the two critically.  "That'd be Racetrack, by the way," he added grumpily, rubbing at his eyes, and smoothing some dark hair away from his forehead.

            Ram stared at him in disbelief.  "Your parents named you 'Racetrack?'"  No answer.  "Were they _drunk_?"

            "What kinda name you got?"

            "Well…this is Ginnie, and I'm Ram."

            "Ram?  No kiddin'?"

            "Sure," Ginnie said. "It's on his underwear and everything."  Ram smacked her upside the head.

            "So you're really named _Ram_?" Racetrack scoffed.

            "It's short for Ramchandra.  What?  It's a _family name_."

            Racetrack just looked at him.  In his mind, he was considering his options.  Obviously, whatever was going on, this wasn't the best of situations.  He didn't know who these people were, but he could use whatever help he could get.  What was the point in making enemies before he even knew what was happening?

            He stuck out his hand to shake.  "We'll call it even," he said.

            "It's a deal."

            And then, as intelligent teenagers are wont to do upon meeting each other for the first time, they stared at each other for a while in heightened awkwardness.  Racetrack sighed, suddenly looking as pale as an arum lily.  Ram nudged Ginnie.  "Say something comforting."

            Ginnie put on the comforting smile she had learned from years of watching _Oprah_.  "I like your pants, Race."

            "Thanks."

            "They're very…um…plaid."

            "Right."  Racetrack paused, swallowing uncomfortably. "So Ram?  Do me a favor?"

            "Hm?"

            "I think I'm gonna be sick on ya."

            And, as usual, Racetrack was true to his word.

            Ram sighed as he looked down at front at what had once been identifiable as Beavis and Butthead.  "Well," he said, a little sadly, "I never liked that shirt much, anyway."

            "Ram," Ginnie said.  "That shirt was like the brother you never had, and you have three older brothers anyway."

            "Well, can you _blame _me?"

            Racetrack smiled, and cuffed him on the ear.

            They were just beginning to talk things over and try to figure out their predicament (you bond with someone pretty quickly if they've just thrown up on you) when another curveball was thrown their way, this time in the form of a young woman stalking past the open door.

            "So why are we here?"

            "Dunno."

            "How'd we get here?"

            "Dunno."

            "What happened, exactly?  Do you remember _anything?_"

            Racetrack sighed.  "Look…the same thing happened to us as it did to you.  An' I don't know _what _happened, but trust me when I say you're not gonna be home for dinner."

            "But why would we—"

            "Shut up, Ginnie."

            "Okay."

            Just then, the girl in question wandered past the door.  Her dark hair was done up in a stiff pleat down her back and she looked as if she had just fallen out of bed, done up in little more than a loose pink dressing-gown, with a pair of snow-soft fox furs worn round her neck, and a silver clasp in her hair.  She was holding an old book at arm's-length as she paced up and down the corridor, reciting the same verse over and over as she brushed her teeth.  Suddenly, something in the room caught her eye, and she glanced over to them.  From the moment her eyes rested on the occupants—Race, Ram and Ginnie sitting cross legged discussing their predicament, while everyone else lay sprawled out across the floorboards, unconscious—she looked as if she had seen a ghost.

            For a second, it seemed as if she was about to faint.  Then she let loose one of the most impressive strings of expletives Racetrack had heard in his entire life, and pounded off into the distance.

            Racetrack leaned out the door, peering after her.  "Uh, Miss?  You forgot your toothbrush."

            And with that, they set to waking up everyone else, and were almost done by the time she returned, another girl arm in arm with her, holding, of all things, an enormous silver teapot.

            "Well," she said, addressing them all.  At this word every set of eyes were on her, waiting for her to say the one definitive thing that explained their situation and made it all better.

            "Well," she said, again.  "Would any of you like to use the powder room?"

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            An hour later, all of them sat crammed into Coin's upstairs apartment, sprawling, scrabbling, sipping pungent heartsease tea in cracked cups and saucers, mugs and wineglasses, fingerbowls and jam-jars, and when nothing resembling a clean glass could be found (because there were so many of them, more guests than Coin would even have in her worst nightmare, and more than she could ever have imagined slipping through the fissure this quickly), they drank from empty wine bottles, flower pots, slippers.

            "Why is it so important that they drink it?" Ershey asked, leaning over from her perch on top of the stove to peer over at Coin as she leaned against the wall.

            "It's relaxing," she said, simply.

            "You mean it's a sedative."

            "If you care to phrase it that way, yes.  They're in a frightening situation, they need to calm down, listen, figure things out.  This helps."

            "Are you sure this isn't illegal?" Ershey asked.

            "Is anything illegal here?"

            "…Fair enough."

            As if to prove Coin's point, Swifty half-fell over the arm of the divan.  "This is good tea."

            "Yeah…really…tea-y."

            Ram had figured out what was going on a while back, and was carefully pouring the contents of his cup into his sneaker.  David had also figured out what was going on, but had wisely decided that the best thing he could do in this situation was get loaded, and was on his third cup.  And everyone else was somewhere in between.

            Coin decided that this was the best time to make her entrance, pulled her coat about her shoulders, stood in the midst of them, and did their best to explain what was going on.

            And again.

            And again.

            The third time did the trick and by nightfall they were all staring at her in awe, but not speaking, and with a look on their faces like they might never again.  Jack—the apparent leader, as far as Coin could see—was the first to really snap out of it, and ever after that he took it calmly.

            "You're dealing with this awfully well," Ershey remarked.

            "Yeah, well…after I found out Skitts shaved his chest, I haven't been surprised by much."

            "I _knew _it!" Kid Blink crowed, only to have Skittery punch him, hard, on the shoulder.

            "I do _not _shave my chest, Jack," he hissed.

            "Oh?  Then why did I walk in on ya one day and find you with ya shoit off, covered in my shavin' cream?"

            "So that's what that was…" Bumlets mused.

            "You saw it too?"

            "OKAY, THAT'S IT, EVERYONE SHUT UP!"

            All the newsies whirled around, startled, to see Ram sitting on the floor, having listened to their conversation for the past fifteen minutes, growing more and more frustrated with every passing exchange.

            "Who the hell are you?" Blink asked.

            "I," he said, "am Ramchandra Hakim-Jaleel Kadam, and I know the answers to all of your questions.  Treat me with respect and I will do the same for you."

            "Really?"

            "No.  But your friend Racetrack hurled on me.  You owe me one."

            Coin just sighed, her head in her hands.  This was going to take a lot longer than she had hoped.

            By the time all questions had been asked and answered, every piece of minutiae figured out, hours had passed, and the only thing left to decide, really, was what they were going to actually do.

            "Well, we're gonna find Spot," Jack said, simply.  "What else?"

            "Jesus, you sure are takin' this in stride," Skittery muttered, still a little miffed about the chest-shaving accusation.

            "Well, what else am I gonna do?"

            "If I'm not wrong—and I never am," Ram said in a perfect deadpan, as he turned towards Ginnie, "they're headed straight for the fire swamp."

            Ginnie looked for a moment, as if she was about to laugh, and then collapsed, unconscious, in Ram's lap.

            "Swell."

            Jack turned towards them.  "So whaddaya say?  We look for our friend, you look for yours, we see if we can get away from this godforsaken place…you in?"

            "That has to be the most idiotic idea I've ever heard," Ram said.  And then, as the only natural continuation: "I love it."

            Straight for the fire swamp.

            [TBC…]

            .,.,.,.,.,.,.,

            **A/N: **This chapter was brought to you by AngstyGenderConfused!ChristianBale, from the wonderful and truly excellent (if rather plotless) _Velvet Goldmine_, possibly the best movie ever made about angsty gender confused Christian Bale and the glam rock scene in seventies England.

            (Yeah, I know.  _That _old storyline again.)

            But it has, and I am not exaggerating here, one of the best soundtracks in the whole world.  Especially if you happen to be fic-writing…and Circus Peanuts, of course, help as well. (wink)

            And now, onto…

            **SHOUT-OUTS!**

**            Ccatt: **GOD BLESS THE INSOMNIACS OF THE WORLD!  Yup, I never sleep either.  Why waste time when there are _so many _Ginsu Knife commercials to watch (honestly, when do you ever have to cut your own shoe?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?). 

**            Moonlights Sundance: **LOVE YOU! (munches cookies) Mmm…got milk?

**            Strawberri Shake: **Honestly, they should just do an investigative report on the History Channel on newsie underwear someday. I mean, we know all about labor laws, the strike, but…you know what they say…"behind every good man, is a good pair of underpants." Obviously a _critical _part of history is being overlooked.

**            Soaker: **NARF! (loves)  And if I _ever _write something that even _vaguely _compares to 'Phantom" in all it's greatness…that'll be the end of the world as we know it…and I'll feel fine. (sings)

**            Shooter: **Stepsister, fairy godmother…just a casting choice for our Newsie adaptation of "Cinderella," silly!  Personally, I would pick fairy godmother…can anyone say no to having a wand?

**            Sapphy: **Oh, lord, it's pathetic how thoroughly I've thought this out…(grins) Basically, originally, all gypsies were blue-skinned, but there's been a corruption of the bloodlines and some have only a little blue blood, some look normal, and truly blue-skinned gypsies are very rare.  It's a not-so-subtle nod to a certain musical…I'll give you a hint…it isn't "Oklahoma".

            DALTON: Dammit!  That was my first guess…

**            Uninvisible: **Hey, Jell-O is a beautiful thing.  Personally, I think it should be kept in the Guggenheim, in an exhibit somewhere between…Klee and the Pre-Raphaelites, maybe? God knows a composition in Lime & Cherry (full sugar, of course) would me more beautiful than anything Dante Gabriel Rossetti ever dreamed up…

**            Chaos89: **I'm sorry to say…celery tonic does indeed exist.  It's called Cel-Rey, and even worse, I've tasted it.

            (dies)

            I have some _very _strange relatives in Boston…

**            m-e lee12: **Hey, for me, more characters=more people to mess with.  And have sing KC and the Sunshine Gang songs.  (pause)  Maybe this would explain the cast of hundreds?

**            Silver Petra: **Should we maybe just send Spot around to take out people depressed and overwhelmed by school?  Maybe do a _Pulp Fiction_-type deal, take them out, enter a twist contest?

            Now, second question…how much should we _charge_? (evil grin)****

**            Splashey: **That has to be the most annoying car song ever, right after "this is the song that never ends".  The whole "nine green bottles" variation is the Australian variation, which is what I learned, because I practically grew up in Sydney…of course, I've gotten tripped up on a lot of other variations, too. (mutters) Does NO ONE realize that "rubbers" are just erasers? (sighs)

**            Written Sparks: **Hey, where's the fun in upstanding?  I strongly doubt _Newsies _would have even been made if everyone around was a moral citizen…

**            Coin: **ACK!  D'MOS!  I LOVE YOU!  Seriously, it's like J. Lo, but with cooler hair…and the booty contest?  NO contest. (grins)

**            NadaZimri: **One of the secrets to having an annoying yet semi-cute preppie muse, grasshopper, is to keep them in check, as you are doing admirable.  Oh, and NEVER let them have caffeine…

            DALTON: (bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce)

            (sigh)

            .,.,.,.,.

            **Next Up: **Chapter Nine, In Which A Few Newsboys Learn The True Meaning Of The Words "L.A. Face With The Oakland  Booty," As Well As Quite A Lot Of Other Pop Culture Minutiae, Up To (But Not Excluding) Why Summer Dreams Ripped At The Seams, But Summer Nights Proved To Be Entirely Different.


	9. Despite the Falling Snow

**A/N: **Well, first things first…

(gets down on her hands and knees) IIII'MMMM SOOOORRRRRRYYYYY!

It's been a long time. And _such _an eventful past few weeks. First I was in Iowa, then I was sick, and the, when I could _finally _drag myself out of my house, I watched _Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights_, and THAT was so awful that I couldn't get out of bed for another few days.

DALTON: (dances by) You must FEEL the music!

(sighs) …Oh, and Charlie's back, after being baby-sat over at my good buddy Sapphy's house, which he apparently liked SO much that he wants to live there permanently. However, not wanting to subject anyone to being woken up at the crack of dawn for a good, thorough flossing, Charlie's back for good, I'm happy, and the world makes sense once again. I only hope you can forgive me, too, in a way that I will never be able to forgive that movie…

DALTON: Because the music sets them dancing…and the dancing sets them free…

How could such a great film have spawned such an awful spinoff?

DALTON: …Nobody puts Dakki in the corner.

(grins) Now, that's more like it.

And now, on to the fic!

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**Chinese Lantern**

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**Chapter Nine—**

**Despite the Falling Snow**

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"For once, there was an unknown land, full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes; a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream; a land where all things are perfect and poisonous."

--_Velvet Goldmine_

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"Obviously," Coin said, "we have absolutely no way of knowing where they ended up. We sent both of them out on the train, but it's anyone's guess as to how far that actually went."

"So they could be anywhere?" Ram asked glumly.

"Oh, north, or in that general direction, I suppose."

"Oh, in that general direction, you suppose?"

Coin looked at him bemusedly. "You know, if you don't shut up, I might be forced to stop your heart by way of torturously extreme sexual pleasure."

"Do me next!" called a voice faintly from the back. Coin ducked away, and did her best not to burst out laughing.

They were in the butterfly garden of the Dall Mansions, Coin leading the tour through the heavy, sweet air of the glass dome that had been a gift from a former Nouri prince to his favorite courtesan, kept full of hundreds of species of butterflies for the amusement of the girls.

It was the crowning jewel of the pleasure-gardens in a place where all was hot ice and splintering, exquisite poison. It was where you would go to sit and dream of a better life and feel the snow-soft wings of a Queen Aureliabrush against your cheek, or any one of a thousand other species, creatures so beautiful that they lived only for a single day. And now, it was where Coin had taken the boys who had decided to venture forth in search of their friend—Racetrack, Kid Blink, Skittery, Snitch, Mush, Jack, David, Itey, Dutchy, Bumlets, Specs, and, of course, Jack—and Ginnie, Ram, and Max, still a little woozy, who had decided to look for theirs.

"Here's my plan," said Jack (who, in fact, had yet to say anything today that didn't start with, "here's my plan." For example: "here's my plan—I'm gonna have eggs on toast, and Ershey, do you know where I could find another coffee cup?"). "Here's my plan—the boys an' me, and you guys too"--he nodded towards Maddox's friends--"sneak outta the city tonight, walk aboveground till we find civilization, which can't be that far 'cause the place ain't so big, then we get pointers from there, and—oh, look! A butterfly landed on my arm!"

Racetrack groaned. "Got anythin' else to say, Jack?"

"No, not really…"

Coin craned her neck to look at Jack, who was staring transfixed at a black Morpheus' Moth perched on his forearm. Slowly unfurling its wings, it revealed to the light of day what was concealed so well by its drab, sooty underbelly—in subtle gradations from dusky purple to a blue as electric and iridescent as the virgin sky, as water, as sugar-ice or a beetle's miniature armor, the Morpheus' Moth displayed its beauty to the world, hidden neatly away until it was coaxed, little by little, to let it out. Coin watched for a moment, hypnotized along with all the other boys, leaning in against the worn-through sides of their boots to get a better look at what had to have been the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. And then, with fingers quick as lightning, she plucked it up and popped it into her mouth.

Everyone looked at her, aghast. Smiling innocently, she smiled and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "What?"

"It's…brutal," David said, almost to himself.

"It's a delicacy," Coin corrected him. And with that she led them off along another path, skirting back towards the balconies of the Dall Mansions, and began to explain their escape route.

It was perhaps then that the newsies first realized they were pilgrims in an unholy land—how cruel and cruelly exquisite this world really was, and these girls as cold as ice who seemed to melt like milk and honey in your mouth and low along your body, but as time went by still had hearts as cold as frost. Every one of them reacted to it differently, spoke different words or didn't speak at all, but still they saw. If there was any bitter gift the city had at last given them, it was clarity of vision, and an unending need for forgiveness.

That night, they were shown the other city, the dark underbelly for the ornate butterfly that was the Dall Mansions. As they wandered through the clotted backstreets and alleyways, they realized for the first time that there were so few words to describe the world, and Ram, for the first time than anyone could remember, managed not to burst into song. In a rare moment of affection, Max asked Ginnie if she was all right, if she would be all right, because he wasn't, and was she…was she…but of course she wasn't. Ginnie who cried at everything: at old movies and new movies and children in the park and meteor showers and waterfalls and old people and babies and homeless men and once, for no apparent reason, an old drinking fountain that struck her as particularly poignant. Ginnie getting upset was a given at any occasion but for the boys, anyone could tell, even after having known them for a few hours, it wasn't. Racetrack drove himself crazy looking for children, any child, anywhere, just something, please, dragging himself along stone walls and cast-iron grates and hoisting himself up by the tips of his fingers, scraping them down to nothing, ending up in tears. Skittery and Blink got lost for hours, and it was only be sheer luck that they—that any of them—found their way back to the Dall Mansions before dawn.

"So foul and fair a day I have not seen," Specs murmured, and even Dutchy didn't have the heart to tell him to shut the hell up.

But for Mush, it was Ershey that got to him the most. She greeted him at the door when he came back to Coin's apartments, and when he looked at her, her eyes soft and sleepy and her hair in a dark halo around her head, she looked so innocent—and even if it was all smoke and mirrors, and only and act, he still knew somewhere that there was time, for her at least, to escape from this life and never look back. And at that moment he wanted more than anything to be the one who helped her find her way.

In the darkness of the threshold, when all the world slept, and dreamed their restless dreams, he leaned down and kissed her, on the forehead, on the collarbone, on the mouth. He kissed her with more tenderness than she had ever known, and then, leaning down, whispered three words soft in her ear: _come with us_.

The next morning, fifteen people left the Dall Mansions, leaving their friends to stay with Coin and help her guard home territory, or whatever closest approximation of it the city of Nour happened to be. Fifteen people left, on the trail headed north (or in that general direction), just edging into blue-skin gypsy territory, and a moment later, after a hesitation no longer than thought, a sixteenth joined them, bringing along with her maps and skins and bread and water, and far too many articles of pink clothing for any practical voyage.

.,.,.,.,.,.,

While Jack and all the rest were headed in any vague direction that took them farther away from Nour, Spot and Maddox were headed there on one of the most exacting routes they could ask for. As soon as sunlight dawned on the first day—which, granted, wasn't until about ten o' clock in the morning—Lute was already drawing out a map, deep in the saddle of her sturdy mountain pony, trying to keep a straight hand as the animal worked his way through the rough terrain that lead out of the valley. It was the perfect plan—straight up away from Grisette, then a meandering few days through the eastern outskirts of the black forests (but never deep into it, because Goddess knew you heard awful stories about the creatures living there and what they did to children, and no, she didn't know anything firsthand, but she had it from extremely reliable sources, all right?). Then they would reach the Serrel River, follow it as far as the Ivory Mountains, and once they got through those, Gliss was within walking distance.

All in all, it would take about three weeks to reach the foot of the mountains, and they had started their journey well prepared. It seemed as if, like Maddox, Lute had spent much of her life until now planning for an adventure that never came, and now that it had finally found her, she knew with a daydreamer's instinct exactly what to do. They had blankets and tents and horses and saddles, water, food enough to last them for days, and clothes sturdy enough to weather the winter cold. Every morning they nestled into knitted gloves and shawls and hats, burrowed into fur-trimmed mukluks and vests, wrapped in coats and balaclavas and even (brought along especially for Spot) a lovely pair of fluffy, warm earmuffs, that for some reason he didn't seem to like.

But the best part, for Maddox at least, was the horses. Lute called hers Aias and Spot simply referred to his as It (for example: "It's looking at me funny again. I swear ta God, it has this murderous gleam in its eyes…_what?_ You didn't _see _it, okay? No, don' laugh. Someday you'll know what I mean, and _then _will you be laughing, Maddie? I don't think so,"), but Maddox crooned over hers, loved him, kissed his flea-bitten pate, and named him Norbert Leo Butz, which, for reasons neither Lute nor Spot could decipher, she seemed to find hysterically funny.

"Y'know, that Catholic church probably has a thing or two to say about this," Spot muttered once, on the second morning they were traveling (or maybe it was the third), while they were crossing a little rocky stream and Maddox said more to her horse than she had to him all morning.

"We deserve each other," she said grandly, "Fiyero and I."

"I thought his name was Norbert?" Lute asked absently, not bothering to look up from her notebook.

"Oh, whatever."

Spot smiled, only to quickly change his expression into a grimace as soon as he realized Maddox was looking at him.

It was cold at night, and darker than he could have ever imagined the world to be. He and Maddox shared a tent, sleeping wrapped in animal skins softened with age, while Lute stayed nearer to Aias and It and Norbert Leo Butz, scribbling in her little book far into the night with a stump of a candle-end by her side. And at night, Spot and Maddox talked, about pasts, or futures, or anything really; it was the only time when they were serious, and even that lasted long enough. Maddox seemed to have the sleeping sickness; she would sometimes doze off in the middle of a sentence, words poised but never spoken, so he had to resist the urge to shake her awake sometimes. Once, burrowed down deep, curled on her side under an enormous redbear skin, rough and warm, she murmured a few words smooth with shadow, and then closed her eyes, and was almost gone by the time he spoke her name.

"Maddox?"

"Mm..fishcake…oh, Spot, what?"

"What was that? That thing you just said?"

She opened her eyes and stretched out full, and said into the night:

_She tells her love while half asleep,_

_ In the dark hours_

_ With half-words whispered low:_

_ As Earth stirs in her winter sleep_

_ And puts out grass and flowers_

_ Despite the snow,_

_ Despite the falling snow._

"It's pretty," he said at last. But of course, by then, she had already gone back to sleep.

They only got a few hours of rest every night before they had to wake up in the morning, still dark, for a quick breakfast, or coffee and hen-eggs and rashers of bacon, and biscuits to chew on while the horses picked their way up the slopes. And in the morning and the afternoon, there was nothing to talk about—because it was too beautiful to say anything at all, and the only thing they could do now was take it in. It was winter in the valley, and the trees, towering and proud and bare, stood over them, the frozen ground beneath them, and the sky was brilliant, and cold, and the air so clear that you could hear the snap of a twig from what seemed like a hundred miles away. And they rode their horses along every path and clearing and copse, the ground below them and the sky above them, and it snowed, and snowed, and snowed.

[TBC…]

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DALTON: YOU MADE RACETRACK CRY?

…Well…I…

DALTON: I can't believe you could be so mean!

Charlie, sometimes you need to sacrifice—

DALTON: What are you saying? That you don't want me to enter the dance contest with him? Is _that _it?

**…**

DALTON: _Just because you gave up your passion, doesn't mean I have to give up mine! _(stomps out)

…I should never have let him watch _Havana__ Nights_…

And now, on to…

**SHOUT-OUTS!**

** Klover: **YAY! I'm not the only one who secretly had Davey pegged as a badass…(high-fives) Ohhhh yeah…you an' me, WE know the truth…

** Sapphy: **Eeep.

RAM: NO! MY SWEET SAPPHY! Why…why did she have to die?

Actually, I think she's just—

RAM: SAPPHIRE! YOU WERE TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR THIS WORLD! (sobs)

Ya know what? I think I'll leave you two alone…

** Soaker: **YAY! FIELD TRIP! (skips away with Soaker in search of lawn chairs and some Coppertone) Weeee're…off to see the Fire Swamp! La la la la la la la la…

** Ershey: **Seriously, it's the perfect plan! Get 'em all in one room, sedate them, and then, when they're good and sloshed…

DALTON: (stares in horror)

…PLAY SCRABBLE WITH THEM! Yeesh! What'd you THINK I was gonna say?

** Silver Petra: **Oh, this is gonna be lucrative beyond belief. I met a guy this summer who looks EXACTLY like Gabe Damon, although he was from Massachusetts, not Brooklyn. So, if we can only find…sixteen or so other cast look-alikes…we're in the money!

** Splashey: **Can you make tea out of marijuana? If so, we should find some, call it "Himalayan Roast," and sell it to Starbucks for a bundle…guaranteed popularity, right? (sink)

** Written Sparks: **YAY! You love the Princess Bride too! And, y'know what? I'm sending Charlie over to do your job for you. You need some time to relax.

** Checkmate: **(is under eight tons of Circus Peanuts) I lve moo Checkmate…(attemps to blow kisses)

** Coin: **Hhmmm…feminine intuition, maybe? (cranks up the music, and joins in tangoing with Charlie)

** Nada Zimri: **I find that one triple-shot german chocolate mocha will do wonders for an overworked preppie-musw, especially when he happens to be doing your chemistry homework…not that I would…know from experience, or anything…nope…not me…(whistles innocently)

** Saturday:** You ARE out of your mind…but that is why I love you so. (yells to Ram) And Saturday loves you!

RAM: (from the other room) SO DOES EVERYONE!

(pause)…the kid's got a point…

** Chaos89: **(sings) Aaaaat laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast…my-y lo-o-ove has…come alo-ong…(notices that everyone is staring) WHAT? At least I don't shave MY chest!

**m-e**** lee12: **Ah, I know the feeling. Although, nothing compared to trying to watch Jack in _Newsies _after seeing _American Psycho_…not recommended. ("DAVEY! LOOK OUT! RUN…WHILE…YOU…STILL CAN!")

** BabyXtreme: **Aw, no sweat, babe! (hugs) Follow the wisdom of Ram, and you can't go wrong…(nods sagely)

** Brownie/Melody: **(gasp) Can I come too? (eyes suitcase full of newsies) Ohhhh yeah…

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**Next Up: **Chapter Ten, In Which Things Get A Little Less Serious, Jack Freaks Out (But Since When Is That New?), Racetrack Breaks It Down, And The Newsies Learn Just What's So Special About Stacy's Mom, And Why She Has, In Fact, Got It Goin' On.


	10. In The Black Forest

**Author's Note: **Have you ever made a bet that, later on, you really regretted? And no, I don't mean like in one of those fics where Racetrack is at this all night poker game with the leader of the Queens newsies or something, and he runs out of money and decides, for some reason, "Hey, I'll bet my girlfriend!" And everyone's like, "Racetrack, no!" but he does it anyway, because he's either a bad drunk or really, really stupid. And then, a few days afterwards, he thinks to himself, "that is a bet that, later on, I really regretted."

Anyway, that's not the kind of thing I mean. I mean something you would REALLY regret losing—like your bus fare or your one-of-a-kind autographed snooker ball, or maybe your egg salad sandwich.

Or, in my case, an annoying yet semi-cute preppie muse.

DALTON: DAK! THE BUS FOR DANCE CAMP LEAVES IN FIVE MINUTES!

But I should explain.

Early in July, I made a bet with my pal Mattie that I could update _Horses _(which I swear on all things holy will be updated soon, O ye of little faith) by a certain date, and if I didn't, she could feel free to wreak her havoc upon me. Well, I failed to update, and Mattie failed to conveniently forget, and so now, at her decision, Charlie is going to dance camp in LA to be tutored for two weeks by Dee Caspary in the art of the pelvic thrust, and while he's gone, musing duties will be taken over by…

DALTON: (runs to open the door) SARAH!

I would just like to say that, at this point, my life couldn't really get much worse. And with no preppie muse, my only joy now is tormenting Jack about his masculinity…which, believe me, I will be doing plenty of. Now that Charlie's gone…(sniff)…well, there really isn't much to do but—

SARAH: (chirpily) And now, on with the fic!

(jaw drops) Why, you little--

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**Chinese Lantern**

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**Chapter Ten—**

**In the Black Forest**

Also known as:

_The Chapter In Which Jack Is Completely Not Gay, In Fact, He Is So Straight That It's Almost Not To be Believed, So Straight That He Just Can't Fathom Why Anyone Would Accuse Him Of Being Gay In The First Place, Instead, Of, Oh, Say…Racetrack, For Example, Who Has Never Even Had A Serious Girlfriend, Jack's Just Saying. Not That He's Accusing Race Of Anything, Just Making A Statement Of Fact, Which Is Especially Telling When You Consider That Jack Himself Has Had Numerous Girlfriends, And Is Actually Quite A Stud, If He Does Say So Himself. The Point Is, Jack IS NOT GAY. Thank You For Your Time._

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[**Additional A/N**: You know he's lying, right?]

…And now, on with the completely non-gay chapter of the fic!

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"I wish you could meet my girlfriend,

But you can't, because she is in Canada…" –_Avenue Q_

BENDER: When have you ever gotten laid?

BRIAN: I've laid, lots of times!

BENDER: Name one.

BRIAN: …She lives in Canada; I met her at Niagara Falls. You wouldn't know her. –_The Breakfast Club_

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It was only after the newsies had been living with her for four days that Coin became convinced she had lost her mind completely. After Jack had led the search party out of the city and into the Black Forest in search of Spot and Maddox, a few had stayed behind—mostly the young ones, or the ones who (Coin thought bitterly), were too cowardly to go along with the rest—and now, it was her job to take care of them.

It was all very difficult. They seemed to be going through her supply of toothpaste at an alarming rate, she had to rent out a separate room to take her customers to, and between working all day and spending her nights nested in the room where Spot and Maddox and all the others had come through, prising her mind away from sleep as she sipped hot aniseed tea and guarded the rip in the worldwall, waiting for something to happen, she was getting more and more tired by the day. As she walked into her apartment on the fourth morning, letting herself in out of the corridor's half-light and running a hand through her hair, she was almost sick with exhaustion, and in no mood to deal with eight boys who didn't even know how to squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube properly.

"Morning!" called out one of them cheerfully—Crutchy, she remembered—from her kitchen, making himself busy over her stove while Tumbler stirred halfheartedly at the contents of a glass bowl.

"What are you making?" she yawned, pulling her robe tighter around herself and padding over to take a look.

"Breakfast."

"Mmm." She peered hopefully over his shoulder. "Eggs and bacon?"

"Well," Crutchy said, "first, crêpes, flavored with black truffle oil an' topped with mascarpone and caviar, and then oysters on the half-shell, which we have been simmerin' in a very light saffron cream sauce. Served with pink champagne."

"Goddess," was all she could manage. "How did you learn to cook like that?"

"Oh," he said, dismissively. "Picked it up. I haven't been able ta get ingredients this good, though…"

"Tell 'er about that great soufflé you made las' year outta cracker crumbs an' Itey's socks," Tumbler suggested.

"The _essence _of Itey's socks, thank ya very much, kid," Crutchy corrected. "It was consommé."

"Same thing…"

Coin just stared at the kitchen range catatonically, barely noticing the conversation around her. The past few days she had been having some difficulty establishing what was reality and what was not, and she had a sneaking suspicion that this was just a little too surreal to be true. A lot like how, yesterday morning, she could swear she heard some kind of harmonized chorale coming from the room the boys were sleeping in, was almost certain she could hear them singing their hearts out in there, but when she stuck her head in to tell them to shut up they were all washing and dressing with utter gravity, barely making any noise, and when she asked them, they strenuously denied it. The whole thing was more than a little unsettling.

Seeing the stricken look on her face, Crutchy carefully lifted a sliver of truffle on the edge of the wooden spoon he had been using to aerate the mascarpone, and brought it to her lips. She closed her eyes, and felt its velvet, smoky taste fill her mouth, softer and more lush than silk. This was real. This was true. She opened her eyes, and was almost ready to believe that the things going on around her could be taken at face value—if she couldn't trust her senses, what was there?

"By the way," Crutchy said, ruining her contemplative mood, "your linen cabinet's broken."

"Oh." She paused, considering this news. "Wait… I have a linen cabinet?"

"Well, not anymore, ya don't."

Suddenly, Coin felt close to tears. What if she bought linen that needed to be stored somewhere? Were all her opportunities passing her by—would she never be able to buy linen again? The world seemed, at that moment, a very bleak place.

"Look," Crutchy said, gently, "why don't ya have a nice bubble bath? I bet Pie's outta the tub by now. An' if you ask him real nice, he might even let you play with his rubber duckie."

Curiouser and curiouser…(and with any luck, the liquor cabinet was still intact. She was definitely going to be needing it today).

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[A/N: Jack would just like to let everyone know that he still isn't gay. And not to listen to anything Racetrack says. Because, in addition to being a compulsive gambler, he also lies a lot. So there.]

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They had been traveling for almost twenty-four hours by the time Jack realized it was entirely possible that Ram might never stop singing. He had started off innocently enough, just whistling jauntily as they headed away from Nour and all that lay inside it, but soon whistling gave way to loud humming, and then quiet singing, and then, by dawn on the second day, he was doing full theatrics, with backup singers and choreography and an awful lot of skipping around.

"Is he always dis bad?" Jack asked Max desperately, just as Ram danced past them, Jack's cowboy hat held aloft, singing "You're The One That I Want" at the top of his lungs.

"Worse."

Looking for a moment like he was about to cry, Jack sighed, and gazed up at a murder of crows that had roosted in one of the tall, spindly trees growing near the path.

"If you feel! An affection…you're to shy, to convey-ey…medita-ate, my direction…_feeeeeeeeeel_your way…"

"So, uh, your friend Ram," Jack said to Ginnie, trying unsuccessfully to broach the subject with any sort of subtlety. "Is he…uh…funny?"

Ginnie looked at him blankly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, ya know, is he…queer?"

"No, why would you say that?"

Jack tugged at his collar. "Nothin', he's just a little…swishy, is all."

"Not all guys who like musical theater are fairies, Jack," said Ginnie.

"It's true," Racetrack said helpfully, leaning over from the other side of the path. "Have you evah seen the leader of the Queens newsies do the can-can?"

"No."

"Well," Racetrack said. "Ya should."

"I'll keep it in mind, Race…" Jack paused, looking over at Ram. "So you're sure?"

"Well, I'll ask him," Max said. "HEY RAM!" he shouted.

"WHAT?"

"ARE YOU A FAIRY?"

"NO, I JUST HAVE STUNNINGLY GOOD FASHION SENSE."

"OKAY, THANKS."

"NO PROBLEM! _AND NOBODY…IN ALL OF OZ…NO WIZARD THAT THERE IS OR WAS…IS EVER GONNA BRING, ME-E-EEEE DOOOOOWWWWWN!"_

"See?" Max said.

Jack just shrugged.

"Actually," Ginnie said contemplatively, "how can we be sure _you're _not a fairy?"

Jack stared at her, horrified. "Because I'm _not_."

"Well, I dunno, that cowboy getup's kinda kinky, if you ask me…"

Jack's was almost speechless with distress. "I. Am _not_. Queer."

"Oh, no?"

"I'm manly!"

"You're butch!" Ginnie squealed gleefully.

"Look, I've had a lotta girls, okay? Ask them, they'll tell ya…"

"It's true," Racetrack said. "Tessie Harper, Moll Shelley, Edna Greene…"

"Amy Sheridan," Mush chipped in.

Kid Blink skipped up, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "Georgina," they said together.

"Oh, God!" Skittery moaned. "Georgina 'Bury-Me-In-A-Y-Shaped-Coffin' Thomas…who _wasn't _with her?"

"So Georgina doesn't count," Blink said, oblivious to the fact that David had tentatively raised his hand. "But who else?"

"I'll tell ya who else," Race said contemplatively, looking over at Jack. "Caroline Mierzwiak."

"Ah, she was great, wasn't she?" Mush sighed, only to have Ershey look at him a little curiously. He just smiled at her, and tweaked her nose.

"She really was," Racetrack said. "Pretty, sweet, knew how to make her own soap if the situation called for it…why'd ya dump her again, Cowboy?"

Jack suddenly became extremely interested in his feet. "She had…thick ankles…" he muttered.

"I see." Turning towards Ginnie, Race whispered loudly enough for Jack to hear: "he's a fairy, all right."

"I heard that," Jack said.

"Well, you were kinda meant to."

"Look at it this way," Jack said. "At least I don't sing."

"Aw…" Ram skipped over and put an arm around his shoulders. "Don't you ever sing, Jacky?"

"No. Nevah."

"_Never?_"

"Well…"

"He does when he gets drunk," Racetrack said cheerily.

"RACE!"

"When he gets a liddle spiffed," Racetrack continued, "he stands outside da lodge singin' gaelic hymns at the top o' his lungs till he wakes up the whole neighborhood and Kloppman has to drag him in."

"Racetrack, what was that deal we made…?"

"Oh, an' _I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen_, sometimes, too."

"Jesus! ONCE!"

But Racetrack only smirked.

"So," Ram said curiously, "you only sing when you're drunk?"

"Right."

"Well." He reached into his satchel and pulled out a flask that Coin had been kind enough to pack for them, showing the label to Jack before he pressed it into his hands. "I think we have just the solution."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

_Thirty Minutes Later_

_(At which point, Jack is still not gay.)_

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

"So, ladies—"

"YEAH!"

"Ladies—"

"YEAH!"

"Do ya wanna roll my Mercedes? Just turn around—"

"Stick it out!"

"Even white boys got ta shout—baby got back!"

Breathless, Jack skipped up and hugged Ram around the waist, much friendlier now that he was thoroughly soused. "When I get back to the lodgin' house," he said, "I'll teach ALL the boys this song. And we'll sing it. All the time." Turning around, he took David's hand and began what seemed like a complicated sort of reel.

"Highland Fling?" David guessed, trying to stifle a laugh.

"Well," Ram said, "I think our work here is done."

They camped in a narrow copse of trees and went to bed not long after the sun set, having long ago lost track of time. Almost everyone fell at once into the deep sleep of the weary traveler, each nested in the chilly woolen tents that they had brought along inside their packs, Ram going to bed with especially sweet dreams of teaching everyone to sing "We Are The Champions" the next day (it was going to be beautiful. Beautiful. And they might not even have to get Jack drunk this time.)

As usual, Race was up the latest, long after everyone else had fallen asleep. He never needed a lot of sleep, and now, especially, he wanted to soak up as much of this as he could. He wandered through the dark forest, always staying close enough to the campsite to see the lingering glow of the fire's last embers. Close to dawn, he passed under an enormous tree, leaves still dark with shadow as they cut intricate patterns across the lightening sky, so if he looked at just softly, he couldn't tell what was before him and what was far away, only see the patterns made by the tree, the leaves, the branches and the sky still hung with stars.

It was at that moment that he felt what must have been a raindrop fall on his head. Just what they needed for a day of walking was rain—he sighed, and was just about to head back to his tent when he realized—

--you needed clouds to have rain—

Above him, almost low and enough to be nothing more than vibration, he half-heard and half-felt a lingering, long growl.

He looked up just fast enough to see yellow eyes narrowed to hungry slits. That was all he saw—eyes, and the lingering memory of teeth, glowing white, ravening sharp, and dripping with foam.

And then the thing pounced. Knocking the wind out of him, and digging those teeth without mercy into his shoulder as it snared one claw in his cheek—a new scar that, he thought just before he lost consciousness, would probably earn him a lot of points with girls. _Yeah, some guy in the Bronx pulled a knife. No, I didn't get it from some animal that attacked me in the middle of a forest, in another world._

_Oh, Jesus. This can't be my life._

The creature sank its jaws into bone, clamping down as the poison flowed, first just a trickle, then a steady stream, into his veins, headed straight for his heart.

[TBC…]

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

Jack would like to let everyone know that he still isn't gay. Although why you would even wonder is beyond him. It's just so obvious that he's straight…right?

RIGHT?

SARAH: Well, if he can resist this body, then...

Dear God, what have I ever done to deserve this?

SARAH: (smirks)

**Shout-Outs!**

**Ershey: **(bows) And now, my fair Ershey, with this chapter, I deliver to you…Newsie Raps. (grins) (tackle-glomps back) And now, if we can only kidnap Norbert Leo Butz and make him play…er…scrabble with us…our work shall be TRULY complete.

**Sapphy: **RAM: (runs in slow-motion through a meadow of wildflowers towards Sapphy)

(shakes her head) Do you have ANY idea how long it took him to learn how to do that?

RAM: (still in slo-mo) KKKKEEEEEPPPP YYYYOOOOOUUUURRRR HHHHEEEEEAAAADDD AAABBBBOOOOVVVEEEE TTTTHHHEEE WAAAATTTTTEEEER! HHHHHEEEEELLLLP IIIISSS OOOONNNN TTTTHHHHEEEE WWWWWAAAAYYY!

**Splashey: **(grins) Aw, ya found me out… (sings) Lllllooooovve is in the air…ev'ry sight and ev'ry sound…

(hands her a mug) Sip it SLOWLY, m'dear. (winks)

**Chaos89: **(sings) K-I-S-I-N-G! (pause) Wait…

SARAH: TWO S's, EINSTEIN!

…I knew that…

**Written Sparks: **As a matter of fact, I'm using your character in the very next chapter, where the characters meet the gypsies...it's been tough to work in original characters quickly, because the plot is moving really slowly, BUT…never fear…OC Girl is here! (Now, where are my go-go boots and cape?)

**Soaker: **(falls over due to excessive warm fuzzy feelings) (loves) If I ever make a lot of money and publish a book, you can be sure I'll send you an autographed copy, and Gabriel Damon, wearing nothing but a silver ribbon. (Or should I make it gold? Decisions, decisions…)

**Nada Zimri: **(sighs and looks at Sarah) Oh, I do hate you so…but I still love you, of course. (although kidnapping Christian Bale and Fed-Exing him to my house might help your cause a little) (grins)

**Lady of Tir Na Nog: **Are singing newsies ever bad? (pause) What am I SAYING? And when they rap, well…(sighs wistfully) If only Kenny Ortega had taken my calls back in '92…

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

**Next Up: **Chapter Eleven, In Which Jack Still Isn't Gay, Thank You Very Much, And The Boys Meet Up With The Blue-Skin Gypsies In An Excellent Section Where Jack Expresses Just How Manly And Upstanding And Completely Straight He Is…And Oh Yeah, That Whole Thing With Racetrack Gets Resolved, Too. But Why Would You Care About Something As Trivial As That, When Jack's Non-Gayness Is Being Discussed? (He Still Isn't Gay By The Way. And If You Care More About Racetrack Than That, Then, Well, Jack Is Just Hurt, He Really Is. (Dramatic Sigh))

Until Next Time

A Thoroughly Straight Jack Kelly (Esq.)

(P.S. If you could express in a review how straight you think Jack is on a scale of one to ten, one being "really, really gay" and ten being "a hunka hunka burnin' (manly) love" it would be much appreciated by Jack, who has recently shown himself to have absolutely no self esteem whatsoever. Do him this favor, guys...I just don't want to spend another sleepless night watching him flex his muscles in his Batman commemorative undies.)


	11. Bona Omi

A/N: Well, things are pretty much back to normal. Dalton's still at band camp, Sarah's still annoying, and Jack, due to his dismally low confidence, is still trying to convince everyone that he isn't gay. In fact, for the last hour, he's been up in my room, modeling his Speedo collection for Sarah and flexing his muscles.

Or at least that's what I _think _he's doing. Come to think of it, they've been up there an awfully long time…

SARAH: ((from upstairs)) I AM AMERICA AND YOU ARE COLUMBUS! DISCOVER ME, JACK! DISCOVER ME!

…Maybe they're just really into it?

SARAH: …BECAUSE WE'RE DEFINITELY HAVING SEX RIGHT NOW!

((dies))

So, to recap: Charlie's gone, school's starting up, won't even let me do my regular page breaks, so I have to do _roman numerals, _which are just SO uncool…and they've gotten rid of indentations…and, oh yeah…JACK AND SARAH ARE HAVING SEX ON MY BED.

Could my life be any worse right now?

((piano falls on her))

…I really shouldn't have asked that, should I?

And now, on with the fic!

****

**

* * *

**

**Chinese Lantern**

**Chapter Eleven—**

**Bona Omi**

* * *

"Don't worry. Nobody dies in this story. They just get really big boo-boos." –_George of the Jungle_

I.

There were certain things that Jack could deal with in the morning, and certain things that he couldn't. A cup of coffee was good, a little small talk with the boys, but beyond that, there wasn't much else he could handle—especially now, in the middle of God knew where, after a night sleeping on the ground. In an ideal world, he would wake up sometime after sunrise, maybe to the smell of bacon frying, a nice fire going. And then, maybe, David would see that he was awake and come into his tent…and maybe his hair would still be disheveled, and his eyes would be bright, and Jack would look at him and he would look at Jack and they might…they might…

Shake hands in a thoroughly masculine and respectable fashion, of course—what else?

Obviously, Jack wasn't counting on this happening, but still, the worst he would expect to encounter was Ram's rendition of "I'll Cover You", or "Thunder Road" if luck _really _wasn't on his side. In any case, he hadn't even thought of the possibility that Kid Blink might burst into his tent at five in the morning in what seemed to be a gratuitously small pair of underwear, to tell him, wild with panic, that Racetrack had died.

Racetrack dying. It was almost as high on Jack's list of inconveniences as huge, unexpected morning wood.

Around the campground, in the still-dark morning air, he could hear the sounds of the camp waking up, yawns and quiet conversations, the crying of the birds perched in bare trees outside. It was dark, and cold, and Jack had dealt with Racetrack on an early morning like this one time too many. He rubbed his eyes sleepily, and slowly rolled over onto his back. "So Race died again?"

"_Yes_," Blink said, exasperated.

"Oh. Okay." Jack turned over and burrowed into his warm sleeping bag.

Blink stared at him in disbelief. "Jack, did you _hear _me?"

"Yes."

"And aren't you gonna do something?"

Jack lifted his head and looked at Blink, crouched at the opening of his tent, completely panic-stricken. He never learned.

"Look," Jack said, "how many times has this happened, jus' in the last year? Seven?"

"Eight."

"Right. An' every time, he made a full recovery. So what are ya worried about?"

Blink watched Jack close his eyes and pull the warm covers up around his shoulders, and quietly considered his options. Maybe they were used to this kind of thing happening, but it was different this time, he knew. They needed to figure out what to do, even if Jack didn't think it was important—Jack he hadn't seen Race out there, he _hadn't_—because it might already be too late.

Suddenly, just a second away from panic, Blink was filled with inspiration. Leaning forward, he whispered ardently into Jack's ear:

"Y'know, Cowboy…watchin' you sleep like that gets me so hot…whaddaya say we close up the tent and--"

"AAH! I'M UP! I'M UP!"

Jack leapt out of bed, every muscle tensed, and was halfway across the campground when he heard a long, low whistle coming from his tent. He turned around, furious, to see Blink grinning like a hyena as he leaned out into the open air, and it was only when Jack saw what he had in his hand—clean, slightly faded, and being waved in the air like a white flag—that he realized how cold it was outside.

As Blink, nearly doubled over with laughter, tossed Jack his shorts, a hail of applause was heard round the campground—as well as an earsplitting wolf-whistle that could only have come from Specs—and Jack, cheeks burning, took a bow.

Watching the spectacle over his oatmeal, Snitch paused to stir in another heaping spoonful of sugar and then turned to Itey, biting his lip as he tried not to grin. "So, d'you think Jack finally took our advice and spent th' night with Blink?"

Before Itey could even open his mouth, Kid Blink, jogging over, thumped Snitch upside the head and gave him a look of mock-consternation. "Snitch, I'm surprised at you. You _know _I'm not that kinda girl."

"Sorry," he laughed.

"Besides," Blink added as he walked away, "I ain't a cheap date, neither. Make no mistake—a catch like me, you're gonna have to _romance_."

"Is it healthy to have oatmeal come outta your nose like that?" Itey wondered.

But Kid Blink was all seriousness once he reached Jack, back at the tent, where he was currently rooting frantically through the mess on the floor, looking for a clean shirt. Casting a preoccupied glance over his shoulder at Blink, he thrust something grayish and wrinkled into his hands. "Here," he said. "Smell that."

Blink took a whiff. It only took him about ten seconds to regain his balance, but he was still seeing stars when he handed it back to Jack.

"So is it clean?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Blink watched as Jack tugged the shirt indifferently over his head, and made a mental note to stay out of spitting distance from him today. "So, Jack…about Racetrack…"

Jack sighed. "Look, I just really don' think—"

Kid Blink clenched his jaw. He was beginning, just a little bit, to lose his patience. "Look, Jack, I know this has happened before, an' I _know _you're probably right, and I only just saw him at a distance, but…" he took a deep breath. "Somethin's wrong out there."

"You didn't let me finish," Jack said mildly as he pulled on the gloves that Coin had given to him as a parting gift, which were made of warm, soft wool, fit him beautifully, and would have been just about perfect if it wasn't for the fact that they were dyed fuchsia.

Blink looked at him flatly. "Oh?"

"Yeah," Jack said, smiling, as he pulled on his sweater, and then promptly began trying to put his head through the armhole for five minutes. Eventually, Blink took pity and tugged it down over his head, and Jack could finally finish his explanation. "I was sayin': I just really don' think it's anythin' to worry about, but if you've got a feelin', then I'll trust you."

And, as usual, Blink was right. It would have gotten on Jack's nerves if he hadn't already known for a fact that sweaters were a lot more confusing than people gave them credit for. And besides, by the time he saw Racetrack, he didn't have time to think about anything else—because he knew, from the moment he saw him that something was wrong, something was horribly wrong. And for the first time, there might be nothing he could do about it.

Racetrack was lying on his back in the dank shadows of an enormous oak tree—body stiff, arms outstretched—and cold. Cold all over. Kneeling on the ground beside him, looking at the dark snared scratch on his cheek, the strange soft violet skin around his closed eyes, Jack thought he could almost smell the animal on him—where before there had been only the smell of grime and soot, the rank smokiness of late nights, sometimes tobacco or rotgut gin, and always and the lingering freshness of newsprint, now there was something else, something he had known this way only in dreams—it was sour and thick, like bile, like rubber burning, like blood. It was the smell of darkness, the smell of nightmares. It was fear.

On Racetrack's shoulder was a deep bite mark, the sign of fangs buried deep, blood still warm. Touching it a moment, Jack looked quickly away, and then, knowing already what he would hear, lowered his head to Racetrack's chest, where a heartbeat would make itself known.

There was nothing.

By now, a considerable crowd had been drawn over, people lingering in the distance, murmuring to each other, wondering what was going on—everyone looking at Jack. He tried to think fast, tried to figure out any kind of solution, tried to keep from crying. And then, before he could stop himself, he did what was, in the end, the only reasonable thing he could think of: he screamed.

Although it was more like a yell, to be honest. Jack was hardly the high-pitched type. But it was long, and loud, and full, more than any other emotion, with absolute terror. Not loud enough to carry the length and breadth and weight of this terror, no. But what sound ever could be? All he wanted was for the world to take notice, and maybe, just maybe, for someone to hear him and come to his aid.

The scream traveled out of the clearing and into the forest, wending its way through the trees, ribboning through the branches and around the weathered trunks, through sycamore, birchbark, ash, on and on into the still morning air, waiting for someone to hear it. It didn't have to travel far.

Although they didn't know it at the time, the boys had unwittingly wandered straight into blueskin gypsy territory. Just a stone's throw away from their circle of tents, behind a stand of oak trees and past a tangle of sweet briar rose now lying dormant underneath the winter snow, were the gypsies. They had been living in the thick of the Black Forest for as long as anyone could remember—which, in these parts, was a long time indeed—rarely coming in contact with others, living off the land as they traversed the length and breadth of the countryside, bartering and stealing what they couldn't come by on their own.

They had once been as strong and passionate as legend would have it, and feared throughout the land—"do that one more time and I'll sell you to the blueskin gypsies" was once as common an admonishment throughout the peasant villages of Möbia as "if the wind changes your face will freeze that way"—but by the time the newsies wandered across the path, the blueskins were nearly extinct. Their clans had warred with each other, harsh winters had nearly done away with them, and so many of their daughters and sons had married people from the surrounding villages and become farmers that there were just over a hundred true gypsies left in the country, at best. Even the vivid, pale blue skin that they had once been known for was dismissed out of hand by most outsiders as an old wives' tale, or a side effect of the indigo they used to dye their clothes. And, in truth, their bloodlines were so diluted that there were few real blueskins left—maybe a dozen, no more. And their numbers were quickly declining.

But the boys didn't know any of this at the time. Ram didn't know. Max didn't know. Ginnie didn't know. Racetrack definitelydidn't know. And Jack, as he looked up into the face of the girl who had thundered into the clearing on a gaunt, noble horse with a bluish gray pelt, could only guess where she had come from. He looked up, his hands still grasping at Racetrack's stiff shoulders, looked up into her eyes, at her face cast in shadow from the folds of her heavy blue cloak, at the strand of coal-dark hair caught in the corner of her mouth and the softly blue shadows around her eyes and the blueness of cold at her lips, and could only think one thing.

"Are you an angel?" he asked her.

She smiled. "Angels don't ride horses," she said. "I'm Nani." She looked closely at Racetrack. "Is your friend all right?"

"I think he's dead."

"Well," she murmured. "That's serious." And, with a lissome and rather irritating little skip, she dismounted her horse—she had been riding bareback, Jack noticed—and knelt on the frozen ground next to him. She picked up Racetrack's wrist and touched it gently with her index finger, just gently enough to feel whatever was there. As she put her hands over his heart, she began to rub some warmth into the stiff skin, and she spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"Your friend isn't dead. He's only poisoned. He must have been attacked last night—" she paused, "—probably by an Adder Wolf. You can see the marks here—" she traced the gash on his cheek, "—and here." She gingerly pulled down the fabric of his shirt and showed the puncture wounds the animal's teeth had made, already beginning to fester and swell. She looked up at Jack. "His heart's beating, but faintly. Once he's under the Adder Wolf's poison he's in a state of living death; in a few hours, he'll be gone."

The boys watched her, hanging on her every word. At the back of the crow, Specs turned to Ershey, and saw her looking forward, rapt.

"Who is she?" he asked her, and she didn't even take her eyes off the girl as she answered.

"A gypsy," she said. "A real, live gypsy."

"Have you ever seen one before?"

"No," she breathed, in a rather melodramatic fashion. "Only in my dreams," she whispered, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye.

"…That was beautiful, Ersh."

"Thank you."

Meanwhile, in the clearing, Jack cleared his throat loudly. Already on the horse were Nani, and Racetrack, or at least what was left of him. She was bent low over him, one palm pressed flat against his chest as if to search for that last remnant of life, or to bring warmth to anything that remained. She looked up, and nodded to Jack.

"Guys," Jack said, "there's a place a few miles away where we can get this taken care of. Me an' Nani are gonna ride out, find somebody to fix up Race. An' you guys just sit tight here 'till we got it figured out. We'll be back before sunset, with any luck."

With that, he jumped up onto the horse, which looked to be feeling more than a little put-upon, and they took off. As they galloped into the woods, David ran up alongside them, pulling at Jack's sleeve.

"You expect us to just twiddle our thumbs and wait for you?"

Jack looked at him desperately for a moment. "I'll be back," he said. "Trust me." And with that David couldn't keep up any longer, and fell behind, watching as they rode into the distance. He turned and wandered back to the camp, where he found everyone just as they had been before.

"So," Ram said, brightly. "Who wants to play Mafia?"

II.

Jack had done a lot of difficult things in his life. And even now, in a place that he couldn't even begin to understand, with one of his best friends missing and another one on death's door, he didn't consider it to be the worst thing that he had ever gone through. The time that he had learned to balance a spoon on his nose, for instance, was still something he looked back on proud that he had managed to keep his nerve. Jack was tough, and he was streetsmart, and make no mistake—he could handle almost anything you threw at him, in a thoroughly masculine fashion. But few people could gracefully cope with what he was going through this morning. And, it seemed, he wasn't one of them.

He never carried a watch, but by the time they had made their way out of the Black Forest he must have been on horseback with Nani for at least three hours, the sky gray above them as they galloped across uneven ground, the cold biting, and the wind messing up his hair. Between keeping his worries about Racetrack at bay and trying to regain balance every few feet, he couldn't concentrate on much else, and was really on the edge as it was. Nani, however, seemed to have no trouble with doing all this and at the same time making conversation. Jack knew, at least, that it would probably be wise at this juncture to avoid telling her just where he was from and what he was doing here, and the only way to avoid doing so was to ask her, and then be told, in excruciating detail, about the gypsies and their home and the area surrounding. And frankly, it was just a little more than he could handle.

In the first hour he learned all he really needed to know: about Nani and her tribe, how her mother was the leader, how that made her second-in-command, although she freely admitted that that didn't really mean much anymore (or about as much, Jack thought, as being the leader of the Manhattan newsies meant at the end of the day). And where they were headed: to an abbey on the far side of the woods, the only place where they could have a hope of saving Racetrack. It was a place secluded even from the familiar paths of the blueskin gypsies, a deserted castle sheltered from the winds by nothing more than dripping boughs of untended lilac, and it was there that a handful of women were secluded from the world, to live quietly and study the ancient texts and meditate on the rhythms of the old creation stories.

They called themselves vessels of the Spirit. Villagers called them witches. The gypsies called them holywives, and steered clear of them lest they try to give out charity. Whatever anyone called them, though, they realized still that they knew more of life and healing and the place that lay on the other side of light to ignore them, and whenever a child was bitten by a snake, whenever a son was sick with fever, whenever a daughter needed to get out of the trouble a boy had put her in, the sisters were there—and now, when Racetrack needed help, they would be there too.

After he had heard that, Jack stopped really listening. He held on, and watched as the forest bled past them, and watched Nani, and she was lithe and beautiful and cleverer than any city girl that he had ever met and he just wished to God she would shut up.

"…So then _he _said—this was Hasp, remember, you know, the boy Tiggey was in love with for a while? She wasn't anymore by this point, or at least she said she wasn't, but I don't think she really got over it until Aurora's older brother—their grandmother invented _axle grease!_—found that Adder Wolf-puppy and he and Tig—"

"Nani," Jack said, quite calmly, "if you don't stop talking I might be forced to sing."

"Ha," she said. "Anyway, last winter, Tig helped him take care of Brutus—that was what they named it…"

But Jack didn't hear any more because, at that point, he closed his eyes, plugged his ears, and began to belt at the top of his lungs:

"Fiiiiiiirst, when there's nothin', but a slooooow, glowin' dre-e-eam…that your fear seems to hide…deep insi-i-ide…your mind…"

Nani just stared at him in horror.

"ALL ALOOOONE, I HAVE CRIED! SILENT TEARS FULL OF PRI-I-IDE! IN A WOILD, MADE OF STEEL, MADE OF STOOONE!"

"JACK! STOP!"

"TAKE YOUR PASSION! AND MAKE IT HAPPEN! IT JUS' COMES ALIVE, YOUSE CAN DANCE RIGHT THROUGH YOUR—"

In desperation, Nani turned around and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him as hard as she could. "_JACK!_"

He opened one eye and looked at her critically, as if nothing had happened at all. "Yeah?"

"We're here," she said.

"Oh."

"What was that you were singing?"

Jack shrugged. "Somethin' called the theme from _Flashdance. _Ram taught it to me last night."

Nani paused, looking him up and down. "So Jack…" she began. "One question—"

He sighed. "No, I'm not a fairy."

"Oh, sure," she said.

III.

Through some trick of reasoning that he didn't think he would ever understand, Jack had ended up ceding his rights as a leader and letting Nani go into the abbey to see what they could do for Race, while Jack sat outside and waited. Fast talk really did work, after all.

So now he was sitting in the front garden, trying not to gnaw his entire fist off with anxiety, and wondering if he stayed still for long still for long enough the snow that was softly falling would completely cover him up. At the moment, the idea of disappearing off the face of the earth didn't really sound half bad.

The garden was really a walled-in courtyard, with overhanging winter trees and a plot of herbs dormant for the winter, and a few scrawny chickens wandering around the yard. It was freezing cold and barely light, even though it must have been at least ten or eleven; everyone else, it seemed, was inside the castle, going to morning services. Jack was alone out there but for one of the younger sisters, about his age, who was sitting on a stone bench across the yard from him. She was dressed in a plain purple dress, a woolen shawl knotted around her shoulders and covering her head, a few auburn curls escaping it as she bent over an enormous book bound in calfskin, pages thin with wear. Every few moments she would look up, murmur a few words under her breath, and then stare at a pot of lady's bedstraw as if waiting for something to happen. To Jack's utter amazement, the fourth or fifth time she tried this, a little spit of blue fire appeared on it, at which point the girl squeaked and stomped it out.

About this time, Jack started to notice raised voices coming from inside the castle, then a shrill scream that could only be Nani's. There was a noise suspiciously like glass shattering, and then Nani walked into the courtyard, cheeks blazing with fury, with Racetrack in a fireman's lift over her shoulder. Jack found this disheartening for a number of reasons, but most of all because _he _couldn't even lift Racetrack, and Nani was a good foot shorter than he was.

"Jesus," he said. "What happened?"

"They wouldn't do it," Nani said quietly. "They said he was too far along."

Jack just stared ahead. He didn't really trust himself to talk.

"We can take him to my family. They might be able to do something…maybe…"

Jack nodded, and stood up. They were just beginning to walk out of the courtyard when they heard a voice, quiet, steady, from the other side of the garden:

"What's wrong with him?"

Nani turned around, startled as she noticed her for the first time. "What?"

"What's happened to him?"

"Adder wolf," Nani said. "He was bitten this…this morning. A few hours ago." She paused, swallowing. "We're bringing him back to my family, to see if they can do anything…" she made what seemed like an attempt at a smile, and turned around. Jack lingered just a little longer, looking at the girl, wondering who she was, and he was staring so intently at her, studying the curve of her cheek and the pale skin of her face, unflawed but for a thin, curving scar, that stretched from her forehead to her chin, that he was startled badly when at last she spoke, even as curiously as she did.

"I can care for him," she whispered.

Soft, yes but unmistakable. Nani turned around once more, brow furrowed. "What?"

"I can do it," she said, louder, her voice clear in the still winter air. "They won't do it in there; they don't want a death on their hands. It's rare that someone survives an Adder Wolf, you know that. But I'll do it. If you want him to live, let me help."

While she delivered this little speech, the folds of her shawl had slipped from her head, letting loose a riot of autumn hair. Coloring suddenly with cold and the boldness of what she had said, she pulled hi back around her shoulders and looked straight at Nani, who only stared back at her.

Jack was the first to break the silence. "What's your name?" he asked her.

"Daphne."

He nodded. "How can you be sure you can help him?"

And, wordlessly, she slipped a slender hand under the collar of her dress, and, wincing, pulled it slowly down, revealing one bare shoulder. It was impossible now for Jack not to recognize what he saw. For there, deep and painful, from collarbone to upper arm, was a constellation of scars, in the exact same pattern as Racetrack's.

IV.

"…So, after Michael killed Sollozzo and McClusky, he split for Italy, where he went to live in Corleone, and met this girl named Apollonia—"

"But what about Kay?" Dutchy asked.

"Who cares about Kay? She was boring as hell," Specs said.

"I liked Kay," Dutchy muttered.

"So did I," Ram said. "But Michael got together with her later, so you shouldn't worry. Anyway. So while Michael was in Corleone, along with his incredibly runny nose…"

On the other side of the campfire, Kid Blink sighed leaned back onto the ground, using his balled-up coat as a pillow as he stared into the darkness of the woods, half-listening to Ram's narrative and reminding himself to put a horse head in Mush's bunk the last time he borrowed his last clean shirt without asking. Other than that, though, he was completely uninterested in the story Ram was telling. How could he concentrate anything when he had to think about the possibility that Racetrack might never again take away his money?

Jack had been gone, with Racetrack and that gypsy girl, for almost eight hours now; sunset had come yet again too soon, dusk already settling over the forest as the sky went from gray to gold to black. Pulling his sweater tighter around himself, Blink rested his head on his arm and gazed into the heavy shadows that lay outside the campfire. A cold breeze rustled the skeletons of leaves on the trees, and the wind murmured through the branches…wait. That wasn't just the wind.

Straining forward a little, Blink could clearly make out two distinct shapes crouched in the undergrowth a few yards away, talking, voices hushed. When he tuned out Ram's story, he could just manage to make out some of what they were saying. Even then, though, the meaning remained a mystery.

"Vada that bona omi with the dolly dish and the fantabulosa riah," the softer of the two voices said.

The second one laughed. "Nanti lallies."

"Shut your onk, you dolly scarper. Now. Vada those lills."

"…Omi palone, if _ever _I saw one, Aurora…"

"Nishta!"

Suddenly, Blink's concentration was destroyed when the horse Jack, Racetrack and Nani had departed on that morning cantered into the campground, minus one passenger. Breathless, Jack dismounted, and said, clearly having rehearsed it all afternoon: "boys, you will be happy to know that I have ventured beyond the edge of darkness, and arrived to greet you whole."

Silence.

"Well?"

Silence.

"Don't you guys have anything to say?"

"WHAT ABOUT RACETRACK, YA PANSY?" Blink hollered from his station on the ground, where he was currently lying flat on his back. As Jack peered over at him curiously, he raised his head a little and smiled. "Heya, Cowboy," he said cheerfully.

"Hey yourself," he said. "Racetrack's fine." A deafening cheer went up through the campsite, and through the din, Ram could just hear a muffled sniffle coming from Specs.

"Specs?" he ventured. "You okay?"

"I can't believe Sonny died," he wailed.

Ram patted him on the back. "I know," he said, gravely. "I felt just the same way."

Unnoticed, Nani dismounted and surveyed the scene. Walking soundlessly over in her, she clapped a hand on Jack's back and smiled up at him.

"You did good," she said.

"No one loves me," Jack sobbed.

"I love you," she said.

"Really?" he asked, hopefully. "Because of my incredible manliness?"

"Sure," she said. She really didn't want to draw this out any longer than she would have to, and she had a feeling that it could go on for a very, very long time. "In fact, why don't you and your boys come celebrate with us tonight? We're camped out less than a mile away, just through those woods? In fact…" Biting her lip, she strolled over to a bush at the edge of the campground. "Aurora! Tig! ECAF!" And, like clockwork, two teenaged girls emerged from the undergrowth, brushing leaved from their hair and blushing bright enough to read by.

"YOU!" Blink shouted suddenly, pointing at them, at which point the slightly shorter of the two nudged the other one and laughed.

"There's your bona omi, Aurora. A little dizzy, but vada that fantabulosa basket."

Aurora colored even more. "You'd scarper if you knew what was good for you, you meesey feele," she hissed. Tig just stuck her tongue out and danced off into the trees.

Nani watched them go, and then turned to Blink, grinning.

"What were they _saying_?" he asked, bewildered.

"Gypsy backslang," she said, shrugging. "It's probably better that you didn't know what they were saying, actually."

"Do you guys always talk that way?"

She smiled. "Only when we don't want to be understood."

And for Blink, of course, there was no real proper response to that, except turning around to walk off, and slamming into a tree.

V.

You had to hand it to them, Ram thought—the gypsies, if nothing else, definitely knew how to throw a party. When they had emerged into the campsite, where a bonfire was already roaring, figures dancing around it, laughing at shouting, all of the travelers had been welcomed into the tribe as if this sort of thing happened every night. As long as they had a good story to tell, they were given all they needed without question. Jack and all the rest sat down by the fire, a growing crowd around them, telling their story in the form of interruptions as Jack made pictures with his hands and the firelight, and they ate a dinner of lentil soup and brown bread and beer. Afterwards, Jack and Nani told everyone about Racetrack, and the sister, and how they had left them there—they would visit tomorrow—and the abbey they had visited, and everything else in between.

And then they danced--or some of them, anyway. Jack was still to busy proving his manliness to risk exposure, but most everyone else did. Around the campfire, hand in hand, eyes closed. Everyone had a different style, it seemed—Blink and Mush were attempting a tango, and Itey seemed to have a kind of Snoopy thing going on—but the music went through all of them, the fiddle and the drum, until the world melted away and the only thing left was a rhythm to make the heart seem slow, and a song, the same as every song anyone had ever heard: about love, and heartbreak, and wanderlust, and fate, and passion, and Stacy's mom.(Although that last part might have only been in Ram's imagination.)

He was tumbling down, not even feeling his feet on the ground, and ignoring, for just a moment, everything else that was going on—that his best friend had disappeared without a word, that he was now on a journey to god knew where, and had come as close as he could to stepping in the same river twice—and somewhere between the lines he lost his balance completely, and fell straight into somebody's lap.

He opened his eyes, and looked up at the girl staring down at him, the beginning of a smirk on her face.

At first he had to wonder if it was just a trick of the light, or the effect of opening his eyes after having them closed for a very long time, but after a few moments he realized there could be no other explanation—she was blue, as blue as Jake Blues, as blue as a Minnesotan on a cold day, as blue as Papa Smurf. And then some.

Her skin was smooth and flawless, pale and dusky as the sky before dawn, in perfect contrast with the strands of red-gold hair falling across her cheek. Her lips, in a dark, truncated rainbow, were the color of a deep bruise, and her neck, as it disappeared into a thin wool dress, was pale as talc. But it was her eyes that captivated him, in the middle of all that hair and shadow: bright and dancing and the bluest he had ever seen. And he didn't know if she was beautiful because of it or in spite of it, only that he had to say something right now, something funny and smart and original and wry that would make her fall madly in love with him, desperately and immediately.

He looked up at her. "You're blue," he said, intelligently.

"No," she corrected him. "I'm Sapphy."

Clearly, she had gotten this kind of comment more than once.

Righting himself and sitting down next to her, Ram paused a moment as he struggled to make a comeback.

"What I mean is…" he said awkwardly, "your skin. It's…um…blue—"

"And yours is a very nice chocolate brown color," she said slyly, leaning towards him. "Quite becoming, I have to say, but I'm not really seein' your point."

"Sapphy," he said, desperately. "Marry me."

"But what would our children look like?"

He leaned forward, and did his dramatic face, talking to her in a husky whisper somewhere between Marlon Brando and Bruce Springsteen. "We'll take a chance." He reached out and put a hand on her cheek. "It's a death trap. It's a suicide rap. We gotta get out while we're young. 'Cause, Sapphy, tramps like us, baby we were born to run."

She betrayed her coolness for the first time that night by blushing just a little bit, or at least if that was what that stunning violet flush that rose to her cheeks might have been called. "Do you want to go and talk?" she asked him.

"There's nothing I'd like more in the world," he said, still in the same voice.

She paused. "You can stop doin' that now, if you want."

"That's okay," he whispered. "I actually kind of like it."

"Good," she said. "So do I."

((tbc…))

A/N: Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, this came out long. But, I'm really proud of myself, because I managed to introduce five new original characters, which is more than I had previously introduced in the entire fic. YAY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS! ((parties)) And so, just for the record: Written Sparks owns Aurora, Teepot owns Daphne, nani at 12 o'clock owns Nani, CiCi owns Tig, and Sapphy owns herself. Also—

SARAH: ((wanders into the room holding a cup of coffee, wearing Dakki's bathrobe))

Well?

SARAH: …He's definitely a fairy.

No good?

SARAH: No, he was fine, when he kept his eyes closed, but…afterwards, what really tipped me off, was that he got into the shower and started singing Bon Jovi.

JACK: ((from upstairs)) SHE SAYS, WE GOTTA HO-OLD ON! TO WHAT WE GOT! DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE IF WE MAKE IT OR NOT! WE GOT EACH OTHER! AND THAT'S A LOT FOR LOOO-OVE…

SARAH: He's also using up all of your mango bodywash.

JACK: I HAVE TA KEEP MY SOFT SKIN SOMEHOW!

((rolls her eyes)) Well, this is as good a time as any for…

**SHOUT-OUTS!**

**Sapphy: **RAM: NOW I SHALL HAVE SOMEONE TO SING WITH FOREVER! ((sweeps Sapphy off her feet))

((grins)) You have my blessing…as long as I have dibs on "Popular".

**Ershey: **Crutchy's own restaurant? I'd eat there. And Jack could have his office in the bathroom. ((grins))

**Written Sparks: **JACK: I LOVE YOU! ACCEPT MY TONGUE IN YOUR MOUTH AS A TOKE OF MY GRATITUDE?

Dude, you brought that one on yourself…((grins))

**Ccatt: **"…SHIT! Her name is Alberta, she lives in Vancouver…" Yup, that's our Jack. ((grins))

**Chaos89**: ((grins)) You're really far too kind…I say honesty. BRUTAL honesty.

JACK: ((dances by, singing "Macho Man"))

…Please?

**Splashey**: ((has a cup herself)) First day of school today for me. Can we say, Newsies therapy? (If only we could protest final exams through interpretive dance…)****

**NadaZimri**: Bwahahahaha. Dude, you're a genius.

SARAH: Lemme at 'er…****

**Checkmate**: ((bows down)) Ask and the door shall open unto you…

JACK: ((sings)) Seek and ye shall find…

((stares))

What? I like that song!****

**Saturday**: ((glomps)) SATURDAY, MY LOVE! ((pause)) WHY ARE WE YELLING?

SARAH: SATURDAY STARTED IT. YOU KNOW, WHENEVER IT'S THAT TIME OF THE MONTH FOR ME, I JUST TAKE SOME MIDOL. WORKS WONDERS.

JACK: Not involved…NOT involved…

**me lee12**: ((nods)) …That's probably wisest.

JACK: ((whispers) Say straight!

…you stay outta this.****

**Soaker**: Makes ya wonder if Spot would be blue-ribbon material, eh? ((pause)) ((smacks her forehead)) WHAT AM I SAYING?

gasps It-it reminds you of "The Princess Bride"? ((pause)) ((stares)) ((tackles)) …I love you.****

**Coin**: Personally, I find the Interpretive Western Thing to be a Manly Dance…even more so if they had let him keep in lasso.

JACK: …the MANLY tasso.

Yes, of course…****

**Lady of Tir Na Nog**: Somehow, you just can't be offended by something when it's worded in Shakespearean English…

JACK: Oh?****

**Teepot**: ((sings)) STAND BY YOUR MAN! AND SHOW THE WORLD YOU LO-OVE HIM…

SARAH: ((stares))

WHAT?****

**Shooter**: God bless the forgetful people of the world…because without us, there would never have been…er…you know, that thing, with the stuff. XD

**Next Up: **Chapter Twelve, In Which Maddox Reveals and Interesting Gift, Underwear Ends Up In Some Interesting Places, And Coin Has Her Thunder Stolen, But It's All Okay, Because Crutchy Made Mac & Cheese For Dinner, And That Makes Everything Better.


	12. Alive and Kicking

--

**Chinese Lantern**

--

**Chapter Twelve--**

**Alive and Kicking**

--

_'I never knew you sang that way,' his father said._

_'_I_ did,' Luigi said. 'Why do you think I've only hummed since I was little? And I only do that when I'm sure I'm alone.'_

_--_from _The Silent Gondoliers,_ by S. Morgenstern.

--

"I," Maddox said importantly, "am going to make an egg."

This momentous statement was not met with quite the reaction that she had been hoping for, in part because one of her party had disappeared during the night, and the other one had seemingly lapsed into a coma and was lying facedown on the ground, sleep mumbling something about long underwear, a slightly troubled look on his face.

Maddox gave Spot a nudge with her foot. "Morning, Snuggums," she said, at which point he screamed and started clawing at the air, sounding much like a young girl, and Maddox was forced to drop a skillet on his head. At which point Spot sat up, yawned, a calmly began to lace up his boots.

Maddox sat down next to him and began to look through a bag of supplies for the last of the eggs. "You know, we gotta come up with a better way to do this. It's been three weeks and I think you're beginning to get brain damage."

"What? I can't hear, could ya try the other ear?"

Maddox laughed and picked up her skillet. "You know, for someone who 'controls da newsie hierarchy undah his thumb', you have a pretty good sense of humor, Spot Conlon."

"Y'know, for someone who thinks she's so smart, you have a pretty awful fake New York accent, Maddox Brown."

Maddox rolled her eyes. "You want an egg?"

"No thanks."

"Suit yourself."

As Maddox prodded the fire and broke a few eggs into the pan, Spot lay back on the ground and watched her. He watched her burn her finger and wrap it in the hem of her pinafore, toss her dark hair out of her face, unroll a brown paper bag of oat straw as if some sort of medical precision was involved. He watched her take a sip of warm milk as she sat down on a stump and pulled her rolled-up stockings out of the pair of boots she had barely taken off for the past three weeks. He watched as she recited to herself the names of the crowned heads of Gliss, going through the rhyming couplets she had made up to help herself remember them (_Carmine of the Tedes designed army ploys/ Valerius Sola liked little boys_). He watched her and he thought: there is something fundamentally wrong with this girl. There is something about her that I don't understand, something that makes me want her worse than anyone else I've met, except for maybe Annette Ianucci from the bakery on Prince Street, and I won't leave her alone until I figure out what it is.

And all the while Maddox watched him, and thought: _How dirty he is behind his ears. How I would like to take a soap and cloth and wash them, and then, when they are clean, how I would like to kiss him there, and on his mouth as well, and all across his face and gently down his neck, and all below. _

And as Maddox was thinking this, Spot was looking, lingeringly, at the warm place between the high tops of her boots, where the hem of her skirt ended, and thinking thoughts of his own.

For one brief moment, they seemed to forget who they were: it didn't matter where they were from and where they were going, didn't matter that Maddox was from one time and Spot from another and that, to annoy him a few days ago, Maddox had made a list called "Things That Are Not Older Than Spot Conlon" and the Panama Canal and ice cream cones had been on it. It didn't matter that when he heard it, Spot had asked what the hell an ice cream cone was. It didn't matter that she missed her friends and he missed his. It didn't matter that she had barely kissed a boy—and only once, with Ram, when they were eleven and both wanted to see what all the fuss was about—and that Spot had brought almost every girl in Brooklyn back to his bed, including Annette Ianucci. It didn't matter that she was a Red Sox girl and he was a Yankees boy (although if anything had mattered, that would be it).

For one brief moment, they were just a boy and a girl, caught up in one another, looking at each other, shyly slyly, in the morning half-light. And then, that moment was over.

So Spot went back into the tent to once again consult the maps, even though he had in the past proved to be completely inept at reading maps or even folding them correctly, and Maddox took a pitcher and a rag and a cake of soap, and went down to the river to bathe.

The night before, they had finally reached the Serrel River, marking the half-way point in their journey to Gliss. For the first time in a very long while, Maddox had felt something resembling relief. And now, as she wended her way down through the stands of birch and aspen that stood thick on the hillside, towards the clear waters of the river, she managed to forget everything that was going on. If she knelt down by the shore and closed her eyes as she reached the tips of her fingers into the freezing stream, she could be anywhere cold. None of this could have ever happened, she could be back home, and it might have all been a dream.

It was October. The weather was getting cold. The World Series was starting—if she was being optimistic she might say the Red Sox were competing, but that seemed unrealistic, so. She was kneeling not by the river but by the fish pond at the bottom of her yard, and up behind her, faint in the darkness, were the lights of the house, the game on the radio, but she couldn't hear it from hear, and it was just as well if the Yankees were winning again, she supposed (Maddox was a dreamer and a soft-hearted romantic, always—but in the world of baseball, she knew her limits).

With her eyes closed she walked up the path, opened the backdoor, and went up the stairs to her room. Not a thin-sided tent or a cubicle in a satin bordello or a place at the cindery hearth of a farmer's house. Her bedroom, and out the window with the blue curtains and her old stuffed raccoon, Noam, on the sill, across the narrow side-yard and fence, was Ram's window, and that night while everyone else was still asleep whey would come to their windows and talk, and try to make sense, as they did every night, of whatever had happened that day.

Maddox opened her eyes, looked around her, and saw the river water, the sun in the sky, the snow, and the white bark of the trees—but nothing, nothing at all resembling home. And it was there, crouched by the side of the river, looking our across the mountains, that she felt her first true pangs of homesickness.

--

When he first heard it, Spot had no idea what it was. He didn't hear words or harmony, only sound, a sound like nothing he had ever heard before. The though that someone was singing may have crossed his mind—but this was too incredible, too pure, he thought, to come from any mortal. Whatever it was coming from, though, he had to find out.

As he stepped out of the tent and walked down towards the river, he began, just barely, to distinguish words. It was a strange song, he thought, with lyrics that he didn't really understand—_my baby caught the Katy, left me a mule to ride, the train pulled out, I swung on behind…crazy 'bout her, that hard-headed woman of mi-iiine…--_and as he walked through the forest he was wondering who could possibly be singing. A gypsy, a mermaid, Lute maybe. Maybe it was just a kingfisher choking on a frog and only sounded like it was speaking. But none of these speculations could have prepared Spot for what he saw when he got there—Maddox Brown, lying on her back, face to the sun and eyes closed, singing like Spot had never heard anyone sing before.

"Maddie," he said passionately.

She opened her eyes and looked up. "Yes?"

"You have—and I am not exaggeratin' in the slightest here, this is the absolute truth—you have, Maddox…the worst voice that I have _ever _had the privilege of hearin'."

A fresh blush rose to Maddox's cheeks, going all the way up to the tips of her ears, and she sat up a little. "Really? Are you just saying that?"

"No," he said fervently. "Maddox, you have a gift."

She grinned. "I'm completely tone-deaf, did you know that?" He shook his head. "Well, I am. They found out about it when I was trying out for the part of Peter Pan in the first grade school play. I had to sing this solo and the teacher kept waving her hands around, so I thought she was telling me to sing louder, so I did, you know, and eventually she fainted." She ran a hand through her hair. "She was in the hospital, actually, for a week. She still gets flashbacks and blacks out sometimes. Does your head kind of hurt?"

"A little," he said.

She reached out for him and, out of habit, he flinched away. But all she did was rub her fingers, gentle, at his temples. "Better?"

"Yeah. Please don't sing again?"

She put her hand to her heart. "Promise. I won't even whistle."

--

_Racetrack Higgins was a good man. A simple man, but good. He took his pleasures in life. He enjoyed the races, as his name implies (although I guess you would have assumed that without me telling you, since most of you knew Race anyway and even if you didn't it would be pretty stupid for his parents to name him 'Racetrack' if he didn't like the races, although actually it's just a nickname and his real name's Anthony. Anyway). He liked cigars. He was a very good friend, and always there when you needed him, or at least most of the time, and he didn't mind it if you threw up on his shoes._

Sighing, Jack looked up from the speech he had composed for Racetrack's memorial, and glanced around the room. That was all he had so far and he wasn't all that impressed with it. Racetrack had been one of his best friends, and it seemed like he deserved something better to commemorate his death.

Racetrack wasn't actually dead yet, but Jack was certain, more and more as the hours passed, that he would be soon. They had been with the gypsies for three days and were only just now visiting Racetrack back at the abbey, where Daphne had been taking care of him. She had ushered them all into her room, Jack and his boys, the gypsies, Max and Ginnie and Ershey, and Ram and Sapphy, who seemed to be bonded at the hip at this point, and also were talking to each other in a strange sort of way that Jack thought might have been an in-joke. (For instance, Sapphy would say, "what's the time?" and Ram would answer, "well, it's gotta be close to midnight." Like that. Even if it was midafternoon. And whenever Jack brought this up, they would just giggle inanely and skip off. It was driving him absolutely insane.) The room was spare and spartan, decorated with anatomical charts and bundles of dried herbs—lavender, rose mallow, lady's bedstraw--hanging from the rafters. A broken-paned window was letting in the cold air; Daphne had been sitting at her desk, wearing fingerless gloves and scribbling in a ledger, when they came in. She had said that if Race didn't wake up by the end of the day, he was as good as dead. She had done all that she could do.

And if he died, then he wouldn't blame her, or maybe only a little. Although by now, it didn't really seem to be an 'if'—they were all crowded around the bed he was lying in, the room stifling with all the excess body heat, and yet still cold at the same time. It was as good a time as any to start his eulogy. Jack took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and began to speak.

"Racetrack Higgins was a good man. Simple, but—"

"What's all this about _was_, Cowboy?"

"_RACE?_"

Racetrack looked up at Jack and smiled weakly. "So, what'd I miss?"

And so everyone took turns coming over and hugging him--except for Jack, who had to prove his masculinity-- and trying not to cry (that was Ginnie and Ershey and, interestingly enough, Kid Blink), and saying how much they had been worried, even if they had never met before. And Ram came over and said, dramatically, "loving ees enough," and tried to kiss Race, who didn't take it very well—and all in all everything was going wonderfully, and everyone was relieved and happy and nothing could go wrong, until Daphne walked over purposefully, an enormous bowl in her hands.

"What's that thing for?" Racetrack asked dubiously.

"Right now," she explained, "you've successfully avoided death. But there are still traces of toxins in your body that could gradually poison your system and cause any number of problems later on, and the only thing you can do is try to purge them, and hope for the best." She handed him the bowl.

Racetrack looked helplessly at Sapphy, who was sitting at the end of his bed. "_What?_"

"Stick your finger down your throat and hurl until you can hurl no more," Sapphy explained, gently.

"WHY DOES EVERY POSSIBLE SCENARIO HERE INVOLVE ME THROWING UP?"

"I could sing something, if you want," Ram suggested.

Racetrack cocked and eyebrow and looked up at him, unamused. "Yeah," he said. "Actually, that might help."

--

Tumbler liked layer cakes, with pink fondant icing and buttercream roses that melted in his mouth, and cakes with coconut and lemon custard and sticky-sweet raspberry filling, and dense, flourless chocolate cakes, with chocolate frosting as dark and rich as the sky on a summer night with no moon. But most of all, Tumbler liked birthday cakes: anything with candles, really, even if it was just something sweet like a nickel candy bar, as it often had been back at the lodging house.

Candles were what made it a birthday cake, was Tumbler's opinion, and that was why what Crutchy was doing bothered him as much as it did: even if he was doing something that was completely, utterly against the rules—and it was—somehow if he put some candles on it and sang happy birthday to you, everything would be all right. But Crutchy refused to do even that. And Tumbler wondered if Coin was bothered by it as much as he was—because, after all, it was _her _birthday that Crutchy was ruining, and not his.

But Coin didn't even seem to notice. She was always distracted, waiting in the small room, going without sleep as she waited for Priscilla to make her appearance, and Crutchy was busy too, with the birthday cake that wasn't. Tumbler had never actually tried to build a three-foot-tall gothic castle out of sugar, with working drawbridges and turrets and doors and marzipan swans gliding along the moats, but after watching Crutchy work on it, he somehow felt that he wasn't missing much. In fact, Crutchy had been so distracted the other day, tempering a bath of sugar on the stove as he tried to get it to the exact consistency he would need to make the stained-glass windows in the castle church, he hadn't noticed Tumbler talking to him for nearly five minutes—and then, when he finally did, he didn't even listen.

"Look," he had said, "I'd like to talk to you, Tumbler, I really would, but I'm busy right now—you can see that—so no hard feelings, huh? And hey, if you're in the kitchen already, why don't you give me a hand with tonight's dinner?"

Which was how Tumbler had come to be standing on a stool in front of the counter, pounding an enormous dead octopus with a mallet and trying to concentrate hard enough on his task to avoid thinking of the _old _Crutchy—the one left behind somewhere in New York City, who had always been there for him, even when the other older boys weren't; the one who had taught him how to cook and how to hawk headlines and how to put his loose change in a sock under his mattress so Racetrack wouldn't "borrow" it; the one who hadn't laughed at him when he cried, and let him blow his nose all over his shirt, even though he only had the one and the next wash day wasn't for a week. That Crutchy was gone, or had disappeared inside this new one, who spent all his time in the kitchen, ignoring the people who used to look up to him, making little marzipan _swans_.

"Jesus," Crutchy said in alarm, "you wanna _tenderize _the octopus, Tumbler, not make it beg for mercy."

But before Tumbler could come up with a snappy comeback, or possibly throw his octopus somewhere in the vicinity of Crutchy's head, a voice intruded on their conversation—sleepy, casual, and not at all understanding of quite how much was going on.

"So," it asked. "What're we having for supper?"

Tumbler and Crutchy whipped around to see Bumlets standing slouched in the kitchen door, wearing nothing but a pair of hot-pink satin briefs belonging to Coin. Tumbler wondered, vaguely, if she had given him permission to wear them.

"Bumlets?" Crutchy asked, levelly. "Why are you wearin' those?"

"Oh." Bumlets looked down, idly, an expression almost of surprise on his face. "Well. Sequins chafe me so."

"I see."

"And, y'know, satin _breathes_."

"Does it?"

While Bumlets was busy comparing the merits of different fabrics, and Crutchy, his head in the oven, was explaining the proposed menu for the night, Tumbler had just enough time to reach into the icebox, find a dish of leftover macaroni and cheese, and dash out the door and into Coin's adopted quarters.

She was asleep when he got there, hair a bird's-nest and eyes red, curled up on the floor, her head resting against her arm. The shimmering rip in the worldwall that had become almost commonplace to him hung lose, a few of its glinting strands resting against her hair—gold entangled with black.

"Coin," he whispered urgently. "You awake?"

He didn't even have time to finish his sentence before she sat bolt upright, her eyes wild. "No," she said breathlessly. "Just resting my eyes." She crossed her legs and leaned against the wall, beckoning for Tumbler to sit down next to her. "What day is it, anyway?" she asked him.

"Day before your birthday." He handed the bowl of leftover macaroni to her and she began to eat ravenously.

"Mmf grlp strp?" she asked him. (She meant to ask how the castle was coming, but it didn't quite make it out that way as her mouth was crammed full of noodles. Still, she was very expressive; Tumbler could more or less understand her.)

"Fine," he said grudgingly. "Crutchy's puttin' the finishing touches on the swans."

"Lovely," she managed.

Coin paused, and looked at her a moment. "Hey listen," he said at last, "it's the day before your birthday, and…you've been here for what, a week? Maybe you should take a quick break. Go upstairs and sleep for a few hours. I'll watch."

All Coin could do for the moment was stare in disbelief at this eight-year-old boy who was somehow nicer to her than any adult she had ever met. He just looked back at her, levelly, quietly.

"Do you really mean it?"

"'Course," he said. "Nothing'll happen in four hours. Oh, and you have a noodle on your lip."

The next few moments would always be hazy in her memory. She set the bowl down and gathered her robes around her, bent down to kiss Tumbler's forehead, while thinking of how many sweethearts he would have one day, and headed out the door. If there was any indication of what was about to happen—any noise or flash of light or anything at all—then she didn't notice it, such was her intent on getting up the stairs, into her apartments, and to her bed, and she would pull the covers up over her head and burrow down and sleep, sleep _soundly, _for twelve or sixteen hours at least, and fuck everything that was going on because all that mattered was—and suddenly Tumbler was rushing up to her and pulling frantically at her nightgown and she was looking down and asking _what _and all he could say was that she was here.

For a split-second, Coin wondered who he was talking about. And then she knew.

Looking up, she could just catch a last glimpse as Priscilla as she rounded the corner—a flash of pale slender ankle and black silk—and then she was gone.

After that moment, she didn't need any help remembering.

--

tbc…

A/N: Supreme, sublime, and surreptitious shame for this section's stunning setback—and apologies for the alliteration. Honestly, I sound just like Dalton.

(And for all of you enquiring into his welfare, the annoying yet semi-cute preppie muse is doing fine—still at dance camp, soaking up the sun and playing nice with all the other preppie-muses. He sent me a postcard the other day with a nice picture of Paula Abdul on it, and I'll transcribe it for all of you, here in the authors' note:

DEER DAKKI—

AM HAVING GRATE TIME AT DANCE CAMP DEE SAYS I HAVE EXCELLENT BONE STRUCTURE FOR DANSER. ROOMMATE CHRIS SAYS HE WANTS ME TO BE IN HIS DANCE TROOP IN NYC THIS FALL!!!!! (PLEEZ PLEEZ PLEEZ LET ME GO!!!!! I WILL BRING BACK SNOGLOBE). I HAVE FORTY-EIGHT MOSKITO BITES I _COUNTED!!!!!! _CAMP FOOD STILL BAD THO. SEND CARE PACKAGE WITH TWINKIES AND MY PICTURE OF EMILIO ESTEVEZ THAT I KEEP BY MY BED _NOT THE ONE _OF HIM IN BREKFAST CLUB BUT YOUNG GUNS!!

XOXOXOXOXOX (TIMES A SQUILLION!!!!!!!!!!!)

SAY HI TO SARAH AND JACK

Charles Cahill Dalton, Jr.)

--

SHOUT-OUTS!

**Coin**: JACK: I am NOT a pansy! …Irish dancing socks? Where? ((pause)) You know, I never had Irish dancing socks as child…

Oh, God, Jack's Irish dancing sock story. Cover your ears, Coiny.

JACK: It all begins in the year of 1887. We see a young, preternaturally handsome boy wandering the streets of Lower Manhattan, his toes freezing cold, his eyes welling up with tears…

**Lady of Tir Na Nog**: I have to agree that "you're blue" is a pretty good pickup line, compared to some of the ones Jack tries on a regular basis.

JACK: ((gazing adoringly at Sarah)) Did it hurt?

SARAH: Did…what hurt?

JACK: _When you fell from heaven?_

SARAH: …

JACK: …

SARAH: …GOD! I feed you ONCE and you NEVER go away!

--

**Sapphy**: RACETRACK: ((weakly)) Oh…I'm all right Sapphy…((coughs feebly)) COME TO ME DAKKI, THE LIGHT IS FAAAAAAAAAADING…CAN'T YOU SEE THE EVENING STAR APPEEEEEEEEEEEARING?

DAKKI: …You can sing awfully well for someone so feeble, can'tcha Race?

--

**Soaker**: Oh, don't worry. Racetrack's died about nine times, he's used to it.

RACETRACL: ((nods))

Anyway, he should count himself lucky…I usually kill Spot in my stories.

SPOT: ((hums cheerfully))

I said I usually KILL SPOT in my stories.

SPOT: Huh? Somebody say me name?

((buries her head in her hands))

--

**Chaos89**: SPOT: HOW CAN ANYONE NOT BE PLEASED BY WOOLLY MITTENS? ((sobs))

((raises an eyebrow)) …What do you say we give Spot one of those pina coladas right now? …extra rum, of course.

--

**Saturday**: ((bows down)) Miss most beloved of all cowriters, how could I deniest thou a cameo? Thou shalt live in the pirate village and be a pirate slut.

SARAH: Isn't 'thou' supposed to be plural?

Shutteth up.

--

**Checkmate**: YAY! ((catches bag of circus peanuts and munches away)) What would I do without you, Checkmate?

JACK: ((points at the circus peanuts)) Those aren't some sort of…gay sex toy, are they?

You must forgive Jack. In his recent paranoia he seems to think everything is some sort of gay sex toy.

JACK: ((stares in horror at the computer))

--

**Shooter O'Brien**: I must say that YOU are uberly snazzy, my love.

JACK: And these crudmuffins! ((munches happily))

Uh…Jack?

JACK: Yeah?

…Never mind.

--

**Ccatt**: ((gasps in disbelief)) P-published? ((gasps again)) …You're _glad _Race is okay?

RACETRACK: HEY!

Sorry. …PUBLISHED! ((goes off to wander around the house confusedly for a few hours picking things up and putting them down again))

RACETRACK: I think you blew a fuse.

--

**Splashey**: JACK: Damn STRAIGHT real men sing Bon Jovi!

And real men sing Patti Labelle?

JACK: Yes.

And Shakira?

JACK: Yes.

…And Cher?

JACK: HOW DID YOU HEAR THAT?

--

**Ershey**: Thank you! ((glomps)) I am awesome! Jack, notice she didn't say YOU were awesome.

JACK: It's because I'm beyond awesome. Is there a word for that?

Yes. Flaming.

JACK: I'M FLAMING!

((collapses giggling))

--

**LadyRach**: YAY, the phantom reviewer! ((grins)) I must say, it's not like I haven't done the same thing thirty-three thousand times. And you should be glad I'm not Lute. Ever since she got hit count with her paid membership she's been tracking down all the people who read and didn't review, and…well, you just don't want to know…

--

**Next Up**: Chapter Fourteen (Chapter Thirteen is Being Skipped on Account of Supersition), In Which Truths Are Discovered, Romances Blossom, Lute Jumps Ship, and Alliances Are Made With A Very Fierce Dragon Named Fluffy II.

And also, since today is **January 30th, **BE SURE TO WISH A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHRISTIAN BALE! To the rest of the world he may be thirty-one (or at least that's what I wrote on that cake I sent him. Hope he likes pink icing). But to us, he will _always _be the dreaming street kid who ends the word "food" with the letter T.


End file.
